Quote

I slide my arm from under the sleeper's head and it is numb, full of swarming pins, on the tip of each, waiting to be counted, the fallen angels sit.

Wislawa Szymborska

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Wislawa Szymborska
Age: 88 †
Born: 1923
Born: July 2
Died: 2012
Died: February 1
Critic
Essayist
Literary Critic
Mechanic
Poet
Translator
Writer
Kornik
Maria Wisława Anna Szymborska
Szymborska
Angel
Sleepers
Arms
Slide
Full
Counted
Head
Numb
Waiting
Slides
Hands
Pins
Angels
Swarming
Fallen
Sleeper

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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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When it comes, you’ll be dreaming that you don’t need to breathe that breathless silence is the music of the dark and it’s part of the rhythm to vanish like a spark.
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Secret codes resound. Doubts and intentions come to light.
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What does the world get from two people/who exist in a world of their own?
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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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All imperfection is easier to tolerate if served up in small doses.
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Whether you want it or not, your genes have a political past, your skin a political tone. your eyes a political color. ... you walk with political steps on political ground.
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Memory at last has what I sought.
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My choices are rejections, since there is no other way, but what I reject is more numerous, denser, more demanding than before. A little poem, a sigh, at the cost of indescribable losses.
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I'm old-fashioned and think that reading books is the most glorious pastime that humankind has yet devised.
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Any knowledge that doesn't lead to new questions quickly dies out: it fails to maintain the temperature required for sustaining life.
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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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Life lasts but a few scratches of the claw in the sand.
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Their faith will make it easier for them to live and die.
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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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There is so much Everything that Nothing is hidden quite nicely
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I don't know the role I'm playing. I only know it's mine, non-convertible.
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They say the first love's most important. That's very romantic, but not my experience.
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But they know about us, they know, the four corners, and the chairs nearby us. Discerning shadows also know, and even the table keeps quiet.
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Every beginning is only a sequel, after all, and the book of events is always open halfway through.
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