193 Quotes by Wisława 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.

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

I'm one-time-only to the marrow of my bones.

I'm drowning in papers.

They say the first love's most important. That's very romantic, but not my experience.

Contemporary poets are skeptical and suspicious even, or perhaps especially, about themselves. They publicly confess to being poets only reluctantly, as if they were a little ashamed of it. But in our clamorous times it's much easier to acknowledge your faults, at least if they're attractively packaged, than to recognize your own merits, since these are hidden deeper and you never quite believe in them yourself.

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.

No one in my family has ever died of love. What happened, happened, but nothing myth-inspiring.

No one feels good at four in the morning. If ants feel good at four in the morning —three cheers for the ants.