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Poorly prepared for the dignity of life, I barely keep up with the pace of the action imposed. Reality demands.

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
Keep
Imposed
Reality
Barely
Life
Pace
Demands
Dignity
Prepared
Demand
Action
Poorly

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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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Secret codes resound. Doubts and intentions come to light.
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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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Somewhere out there the world must have an end.
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Generally speaking, life is so rich and full of variety you have to remember all the time that there is a comical side to everything.
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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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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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All the best have something in common, a regard for reality, an agreement to its primacy over the imagination.
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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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Even boredom should be described with gusto. How many things are happening on a day when nothing happens?
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All the best have something in common, a regard for reality, an agreement to its primacy over the imagination. Even the richest, most surprising and wild imagination is not as rich, wild and surprising as reality. The task of the poet is to pick singular threads from this dense, colorful fabric.
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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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I'm fighting against the bad poet who is prone to using too many words.
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I cannot speak for more than an hour exclusively about poetry. At that point, life itself takes over again.
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They say the first sentence in any speech is always the hardest. Well, that one's behind me, anyway.
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All imperfection is easier to tolerate if served up in small doses.
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They say the first love's most important. That's very romantic, but not my experience.
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You can find the entire cosmos lurking in its least remarkable objects.
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Nothing's a gift, it's all on loan
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I'm one-time-only to the marrow of my bones.
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