Wisława Szymborska quotes - page 5

Even sight heightened to become all-seeing will do you no good without a sense of taking part. (Wisława Szymborska)
I felt age within me. Distance. The futility of wandering. Torpor. View quote
Wisława Szymborska
And how can we talk of order overall when the very placement of the stars leaves us doubting just what shines for whom? View quote
Wisława Szymborska
Few of them made it to thirty. Old age was the privilege of rocks and trees. View quote
Wisława Szymborska
Within him, there's awful darkness, in the darkness a small boy. View quote
Wisława Szymborska
Our times are still not safe and sane enough for faces to show ordinary sorrow. View quote
Wisława Szymborska
Our snakes have shed their lightning, our apes their flights of fancy. View quote
Wisława Szymborska
I'm working on the world, revised, improved edition. View quote
Wisława Szymborska
Gone, lost, scattered to the four winds. It still surprises me how little now remains. View quote
Wisława Szymborska
Those who knew what this was all about must make way for those who know little. View quote
Wisława Szymborska
I remember it so clearly - how people, seeing me, would break off in midword. Laughter died. (Wisława Szymborska)
I am a tarsier and a tarsier's son, the grandson and great-grandson of tarsiers. View quote
Wisława Szymborska
We call it a grain of sand but it calls itself neither grain nor sand. View quote
Wisława Szymborska
I no longer require your stone gods, your ruins with legible inscriptions. View quote
Wisława Szymborska
It looks like poets will always have their work cut out for them. View quote
Wisława Szymborska
In Heraclitus' river a fish has imagined the fish of all fish. View quote
Wisława Szymborska
The Three Oddest Words When I pronounce the word Future, the first syllable already belongs to the past. When I pronounce the word Silence, I destroy it. When I pronounce the word nothing, I make something no nonbeing can hold. View quote
Wisława Szymborska
Every beginning, after all, is nothing but a sequel, and the book of events is always open in the middle. View quote
Wisława Szymborska
It turns out I was right. But nothing has come of it. View quote
Wisława Szymborska
True love. Is it normal is it serious, is it practical? What does the world get from two people who exist in a world of their own? View quote
Wisława Szymborska
Each of us has a very rich nature and can look at things objectively, from a distance, and at the same time can have something more personal to say about them. I am trying to look at the world, and at myself, from many different points of view. I think many poets have this duality. (Wisława Szymborska)
I usually write for the individual reader -though I would like to have many such readers. There are some poets who write for people assembled in big rooms, so they can live through something collectively. I prefer my reader to take my poem and have a one-on-one relationship with it. View quote
Wisława Szymborska
Everyone needs solitude, especially a person who is used to thinking about what she experiences. Solitude is very important in my work as a mode of inspiration, but isolation is not good in this respect. I am not writing poetry about isolation. View quote
Wisława Szymborska
Take it not amiss, O speech, that I borrow weighty words, and later try hard to make them seem light. View quote
Wisława Szymborska
In the language of poetry, where every word is weighed, nothing is usual or normal. Not a single stone and not a single cloud above it. Not a single day and not a single night after it. And above all, not a single existence, not anyone's existence in this world. View quote
Wisława Szymborska