Wisława Szymborska

When it comes, you’ll be dreaming

— Wisława Szymborska

They say the first sentence in any speech is always the hardest. Well, that one's behind me, anyway.

— Wisława Szymborska

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.

— Wisława Szymborska

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

— Wisława Szymborska

Toy balloon There are no children here.

— Wisława Szymborska

They were or they weren't. Swallowed them up or it didn't.

— Wisława Szymborska

I'm working on the world, tricks for old dogs.

— Wisława Szymborska

Our snakes have shed their lightning, don't know how to talk to one another.

— Wisława Szymborska

I am too close for him to dream of me. I am too close.

— Wisława Szymborska

My cry could only waken him. And what in many shimmering hues.

— Wisława Szymborska

In Heraclitus' river a fish begs the fish to ease its fishy lot.

— Wisława Szymborska

I, the solitary fish, a fish apart may only be the dark's embarrassed wink.

— Wisława Szymborska

No other sense can make up for your missing sense of taking part. only its seed, imagination.

— Wisława Szymborska

I knock at the stone's front door. "I don't have a door," says the stone.

— Wisława Szymborska

Our stockpile of antiquity grows constantly, so sentimental, so spacious.

— Wisława Szymborska

I remember it so clearly — no one ever finished it near me.

— Wisława Szymborska

I'm sorry that my voice was hard. They heard me and lowered their eyes.

— Wisława Szymborska

Yes, she loved him very much. Yes, he was born that way. a tape recorder. Yes, she has seen such things.

— Wisława Szymborska

Yes, the memory still moves her. passing by the new arrivals in the hall.

— Wisława Szymborska

Whose side are you on?" "I don't know." "Are those your children?" "Yes.

— Wisława Szymborska

This adult male. This person on earth. This object took three billion years to emerge.

— Wisława Szymborska

He feels like a handle broken off a jug, but the jug doesn't know it's broken and keeps going to the well.

— Wisława Szymborska

Within him, there's awful darkness, in the darkness a small boy. God of humor, do something about him today.

— Wisława Szymborska

I am a tarsier and a tarsier's son, and whatever simply could not be left out...

— Wisława Szymborska

And only we few who remain unstripped of fur, which finds you innocent for now.

— Wisława Szymborska

So he's got to have happiness, did you ever!

— Wisława Szymborska

He's no end of fun, for all you say. A human, if ever we saw one.

— Wisława Szymborska

Everything the dead predicted has turned out completely different. Or a little bit different — which is to say, completely different.

— Wisława Szymborska

I believe in the refusal to take part. I believe in the secret taken to the grave.

— Wisława Szymborska

I lost a few goddesses while moving south to north and also some gods while moving east to west.

— Wisława Szymborska

My siblings died the day I left for dry land and only one small bone recalls that anniversary in me.

— Wisława Szymborska

Gone, lost, scattered to the four winds. It still surprises me about a blue umbrella left yesterday on a bus.

— Wisława Szymborska

My apologies to the felled tree for the table's four legs. My apologies to great questions for small answers.

— Wisława Szymborska

I know I won't be justified as long as I live, then labor heavily so that they may seem light.

— Wisława Szymborska

My choices are rejections, since there is no other way, A little poem, a sigh, at the cost of indescribable losses.

— Wisława Szymborska

My dreams — even they're not as populous as they should be. They hold more solitude than noisy crowds.

— Wisława Szymborska

And how can we talk of order overall Only what is human can truly be foreign.

— Wisława Szymborska

I felt age within me. Distance. was simply creeping or hopping along in the mass panic.

— Wisława Szymborska

The going's rough, and so we need the laugh for faces to show ordinary sorrow.

— Wisława Szymborska

On this third planet from the sun a clear conscience is Number One.

— Wisława Szymborska

Millennia have passed and I'll tell you who you were.

— Wisława Szymborska

Secret codes resound. Doubts and intentions come to light.

— Wisława Szymborska

Show me your little poem smell of burning.

— Wisława Szymborska

We call it a grain of sand incorrect or apt.

— Wisława Szymborska

The window has a wonderful view of a lake, soundless, odorless, and painless.

— Wisława Szymborska

There's no life As far as you've come can't be undone.

— Wisława Szymborska

He managed to come into the world at what was still a fitting time. that student field trips rarely reach.

— Wisława Szymborska

Few of them made it to thirty. before the first snow.

— Wisława Szymborska

And who's this little fellow in his itty-bitty robe? That's tiny baby Adolf, the Hitlers' little boy!

— Wisława Szymborska

God was finally going to believe are still two different men.

— Wisława Szymborska

There's nothing more debauched than thinking.

— Wisława Szymborska

It's shocking, the positions, Such positions the Kama Sutra itself doesn't know.

— Wisława Szymborska

After every war can get by.

— Wisława Szymborska

Those who knew And at last nothing less than nothing.

— Wisława Szymborska

Something doesn't start and stubbornly stays disappeared.

— Wisława Szymborska

I shake my memory. Nothing less than one whole second.

— Wisława Szymborska

If there are angels since all of this takes place in silence.

— Wisława Szymborska

Nothing's a gift, it's all on loan. give up my life for my life.

— Wisława Szymborska

When it comes, you’ll be dreaming

— Wisława Szymborska

We're extremely fortunate than the world itself.

— Wisława Szymborska

For the sake of research, in which everything scurries and whirls.

— Wisława Szymborska

The counting of weekdays a symptom of lunacy.

— Wisława Szymborska

I'd have to be really quick shape, shade, pose, arrangement.

— Wisława Szymborska

They aren't obliged to vanish when we're gone. They don't have to be seen while sailing on.

— Wisława Szymborska

True love. Is it normal

— Wisława Szymborska