193 Quotes by Wisława Szymborska

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!

Sometimes I really have a spiritual need to say something more general about the world, and sometimes something personal.

I'm fighting against the bad poet who is prone to using too many words.

I started earning a living as a poet rather early on.

Poetic talent doesn't operate in a vacuum. There is a spirit of Polish poetry.

You have to remember all the time that there is a comical side to everything.

Poets yearn, of course, to be published, read, and understood, but they do little, if anything, to set themselves above the common herd and the daily grind.

Nothing's a gift, it's all on loan. Out of every hundred people, those who always know better: fifty-two.

I'd have to be really quick to describe clouds - a split second's enough for them to start being something else.