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I don't know the role I'm playing. I only know it's mine, non-convertible.
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
Mine
Role
Roles
Playing
Convertible
Mines
More quotes by Wislawa Szymborska
This terrifying world is not devoid of charms, of the mornings that make waking up worthwhile.
Wislawa Szymborska
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.
Wislawa Szymborska
Somewhere out there the world must have an end.
Wislawa Szymborska
I'm fighting against the bad poet who is prone to using too many words.
Wislawa Szymborska
Is a decision made in advance really any kind of choice?
Wislawa Szymborska
Out of every hundred people, those who always know better: fifty-two.
Wislawa Szymborska
I'm drowning in papers.
Wislawa 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.
Wislawa Szymborska
Well, one is inspired by the whole of life, one's own and somebody else's. You know how sometimes you hear great music, and music is completely untranslatable into words, into any words. A certain tension that is born when one listens to music could aid you in expressing something absolutely different.
Wislawa Szymborska
Their faith will make it easier for them to live and die.
Wislawa Szymborska
I started earning a living as a poet rather early on.
Wislawa Szymborska
Any knowledge that doesn't lead to new questions quickly dies out: it fails to maintain the temperature required for sustaining life.
Wislawa Szymborska
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
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.
Wislawa Szymborska
Even the worst book can give us something to think about.
Wislawa Szymborska
Poorly prepared for the dignity of life, I barely keep up with the pace of the action imposed. Reality demands.
Wislawa Szymborska
I'd have to be really quick to describe clouds - a split second's enough for them to start being something else.
Wislawa Szymborska
In every tragedy, an element of comedy is preserved. Comedy is just tragedy reversed.
Wislawa Szymborska
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.
Wislawa Szymborska
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.
Wislawa Szymborska