Quote

I don't know the role I'm playing. I only know it's mine, non-convertible.

Wislawa Szymborska

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

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
Convertible
Mines
Mine
Role
Roles
Playing

More quotes by Wislawa Szymborska

Image
I'm old-fashioned and think that reading books is the most glorious pastime that humankind has yet devised.
Wislawa Szymborska
Image
I started earning a living as a poet rather early on.
Wislawa Szymborska
Image
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
Image
It's a well-known fact: in order to follow doctor's orders, you have to be healthy as a horse.
Wislawa Szymborska
Image
And whatever I do will become forever what I've done.
Wislawa Szymborska
Image
I cannot imagine any writer who would not fight for his peace and quiet.
Wislawa Szymborska
Image
After every war someone has to tidy up.
Wislawa Szymborska
Image
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.
Wislawa Szymborska
Image
In every tragedy, an element of comedy is preserved. Comedy is just tragedy reversed.
Wislawa Szymborska
Image
I'm working on the world, revised, improved edition, featuring fun for fools blues for brooders, combs for bald pates, tricks for old dogs.
Wislawa Szymborska
Image
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.
Wislawa Szymborska
Image
Memory at last has what I sought.
Wislawa Szymborska
Image
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!
Wislawa Szymborska
Image
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.
Wislawa Szymborska
Image
It's just not easy to explain to someone else what you don't understand yourself.
Wislawa Szymborska
Image
God was finally going to believe in a man both good and strong, but good and strong are still two different men.
Wislawa Szymborska
Image
Today when two people decide upon a thoughtless and precipitate abbreviation of the physical space between them, they think, at least at that moment, that they're mutually attracted and drawn together by an overwhelming force.
Wislawa Szymborska
Image
I'd have to be really quick to describe clouds - a split second's enough for them to start being something else.
Wislawa Szymborska
Image
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.
Wislawa Szymborska
Image
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