Wislawa Szymborska Quotes
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Life lasts but a few scratches of the claw in the sand.
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Existentialists are monumentally and monotonously serious; they don't like to joke.
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I prefer the hell of chaos to the hell of order.
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Poetic talent doesn't operate in a vacuum. There is a spirit of Polish poetry.
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Sometimes I write quickly, sometimes I spend several weeks on a single poem. I would really love for readers not to be able to guess which of the poems took so much work!
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Nothing can ever happen twice. In consequence, the sorry fact is that we arrive here improvised and leave without the chance to practice.
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Though I may deny poets their monopoly on inspiration, I still place them in a select group of Fortune's darlings.
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Get to know other worlds, if only for comparison.
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Even a graphomaniac is an extremely complicated person.
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Poorly prepared for the dignity of life, I barely keep up with the pace of the action imposed. Reality demands.
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When I mention somebody, that doesn't necessarily mean that I identify with him, personally or poetically. I'm extremely happy when I encounter poets who are different than I am. The ones who have their own distinct poetics provide me with the greatest experiences.
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Loveless work, boring work, work valued only because others haven't got even that much, however loveless and boring - this is one of the harshest human miseries.
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It's a well-known fact: in order to follow doctor's orders, you have to be healthy as a horse.
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No day copies yesterday, no two nights will teach what bliss is in precisely the same way, with precisely the same kisses.
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I have sympathy for young people, for their growing pains, but I balk when these growing pains are pushed into the foreground, when you make these young people the only vehicles of lifes wisdom.
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History counts its skeletons in round numbers. A thousand and one remains a thousand, as though the one had never existed: an imaginary embryo, an empty cradle, ... emptiness running down steps toward the garden, nobody's place in line.
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I'm one-time-only to the marrow of my bones.
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No one in my family has ever died of love. What happened, happened, but nothing myth-inspiring.
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Let the people who never find true love keep saying that there's no such thing. Their faith will make it easier for them to live and die.
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Animals don't even try to look any different from what nature intended. They humbly wear their shells, scales, spines, plumes, pelts, and down. ... The conscious impulse to change one's appearance is found only among humans.
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All is mine but nothing owned, nothing owned for memory, and mine only while I look.
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Their faith will make it easier for them to live and die.
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They say the first love's most important. That's very romantic, but not my experience.
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Secret codes resound. Doubts and intentions come to light.