Quote

When I pronounce the word Future, the first syllable already belongs to the past. When I pronounce the word Silence, I destroy it.

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
Future
Syllable
Past
Pronounce
Firsts
Syllables
First
Belongs
Destroy
Silence
Already
Word

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All is mine but nothing owned, nothing owned for memory, and mine only while I look.
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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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And whatever I do will become forever what I've done.
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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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I'm one-time-only to the marrow of my bones.
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Something doesn't start at its usual time. Something doesn't happen as it should. Someone was always, always here, then suddenly disappeared and stubbornly stays disappeared.
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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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Poetic talent doesn't operate in a vacuum. There is a spirit of Polish poetry.
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I'm working on the world, revised, improved edition, featuring fun for fools blues for brooders, combs for bald pates, tricks for old dogs.
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In every tragedy, an element of comedy is preserved. Comedy is just tragedy reversed.
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Four billion people on this earth, but my imagination is still the same. It's bad with large numbers. It's still taken by particularity. It flits in the dark like a flashlight, illuminating only random faces while all the rest go blindly by, never coming to mind and never really missed. . . . I can't tell you how much I pass over in silence.
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After every war someone has to tidy up.
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Life lasts but a few scratches of the claw in the sand.
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I am who I am. A coincidence no less unthinkable than any other.
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There is so much Everything that Nothing is hidden quite nicely
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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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We're extremely fortunate not to know precisely the kind of world we live in. One would have to live a long, long time, unquestionably longer than the world itself.
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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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This terrifying world is not devoid of charms, of the mornings that make waking up worthwhile.
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No one feels good at four in the morning. If ants feel good at four in the morning —three cheers for the ants.
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