Quotes from Wis?awa Szymborska

When I pronounce the word Future, the first syllable already belongs to the past. When I pronounce the word Silence, I destroy it.

The joy of writing. The power of preserving. Revenge of a mortal hand.

I prefer the absurdity of writing poems to the absurdity of not writing poems.

At the very beginning of my creative life I loved humanity. I wanted to do something good for mankind. Soon I understood that it isn't possible to save mankind.

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.

We know ourselves only as far as we've been tested.

True love. Is it normal is it serious, is it practical? What does the world get from two people who exist in a world of their own?

No day copies yesterday, no two nights will teach what bliss is in precisely the same way, with precisely the same kisses.

Inspiration is not the exclusive privilege of poets or artists. There is, there has been, there will always be a certain group of people whom inspiration visits. It's made up of all those who've consciously chosen their calling and do their job with love and imagination…Difficulties and setbacks never quell their curiosity. A swarm of new questions emerges from every problem that they solve. Whatever inspiration is, it's born from a continuous 'I don't know.

We live longer but less precisely and in shorter sentences.

I'll never find out now What A. thought of me. If B. ever forgave me in the end. Why C. pretended everything was fine. What part D. played in E.'s silence. What F. had been expecting, if anything. Why G. forgot when she knew perfectly well. What H. had to hide. What I. wanted to add. If my being around meant anything to J. and K. and the rest of the alphabet.

My apologies to everything that I can't be everywhere at once. My apologies to everyone that I can't be each woman and each man. I know I won't be justified as long as I live, since I myself stand in my own way. Don't bear me ill will, speech, that I borrow weighty words, then labor heavily so that they may seem light.

I am my own obstacle.

My choices are rejections, since there is no other way, but what I reject is more numerous, denser, more demanding than before. A little poem, a sigh, at the cost of indescribable loss.

Whatever inspiration is, it's born from a continuous I don't know....That is why I value that little phrase I don't know so highly. It's small, but it flies on mighty wings. It expands our lives to include spaces within us as well as the outer expanses in which our tiny Earth hangs suspended...Poets, if they're genuine, must always keep repeating I don't know.

I don't reproach the spring for starting up again. I can't blame it for doing what it must year after year. I know that my grief will not stop the green.

Life on Earth is quite a bargain. Dreams, for one, don't charge admission. Illusions are costly only when lost.

there were doorknobs and doorbells where one touch had covered another beforehand. suitcases checked and standing side by side. one night, perhaps, the same dream grown hazy by morning. every beginning is only a sequel, after all, and the book of events is always open halfway through.

Even if you bar my way, even if you stare me in the face, I'll pass you by on the chasm's edge, finer than a hair.

But any knowledge that doesn't lead to new questions quickly dies out: it fails to maintain the temperature required for sustaining life.

Let me have your abyss.

History rounds off skeletons to zero. A thousand and one is still only a thousand.

Memories come to mind like excavated statues that have misplaced their heads.

in painted quiet and concentration