Quotes by Wisława Szymborska

There's simply too much fuss about myself.

Is a decision made in advance really any kind of choice.

I have sympathy for young people, for their growing pains, but I balk when these growing pains are pushed into the foreground, when you make these young people the only vehicles of life's wisdom.

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.

Existentialists are monumentally and monotonously serious; they don’t like to joke.

I’m old-fashioned and think that reading books is the most glorious pastime that humankind has yet devised.

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.

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

Something doesn’t start at its usual time. Something doesn’t happen as it should. Someone was always, always here, then suddenly disappeared and stubbornly stays disappeared.

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