Quotessence
Home / Authors / Wislawa Szymborska Books
Wislawa Szymborska

Wislawa Szymborska Books

Poet

Related Quotes

“The buzzard has nothing to fault himself with. Scruples are alien to the black panther. Piranhas do not doubt the rightness of their actions. The rattlesnake approves of himself without reservations. The self-critical jackal does not exist. The locust, alligator, trichina, horsefly live as they live and are glad of it. The killer whale's heart weighs one hundred kilos but in other respects it is light. There is nothing more animal-like than a clear conscience on the third planet of the Sun.”

LifeHumanityMoralityExperienceSelf Deprecation
Author:Wislawa Szymborska
Create image

“They're both convinced that a sudden passion joined them. Such certainty is beautiful, but uncertainty is more beautiful still. Since they'd never met before, they're sure that there'd been nothing between them. But what's the word from the streets, staircases, hallways-- perhaps they've passed by each other a million times? I want to ask them if they don't remember-- a moment face to face in some revolving door? perhaps a "sorry" muttered in a crowd? a curt "wrong number" caught in the receiver? but I know the answer. No, they don't remember. They'd be amazed to hear that Chance has been toying with them now for years. Not quite ready yet to become their Destiny, it pushed them close, drove them apart, it barred their path, stifling a laugh, and then leaped aside. There were signs and signals, even if they couldn't read them yet. Perhaps three years ago or just last Tuesday a certain leaf fluttered from one shoulder to another? Something was dropped and then picked up. Who knows, maybe the ball that vanished into childhood's thicket? 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.”

Poem
Book:View with a Grain of Sand: Selected Poems
Create image

“Nothing has changed. The body is susceptible to pain, It must eat and breath air and sleep, It has thin skin and blood right underneath, An adequate stock of teeth and nails, Its bones are breakable, its joints are stretchable. In tortures all this is taken into account. Nothing has changed. The body shudders as it is shuddered Before the founding of Rome and after, In the twentieth century before and after Christ. Tortures are as they were, it’s just the earth that’s grown smaller, And whatever happens seems on the other side of the wall. Nothing has changed. It’s just that there are more people, Besides the old offenses, new ones have appeared, Real, imaginary, temporary, and none, But the howl with which the body responds to them, Was, and is, and ever will be a howl of innocence According to the time-honored scale and tonality. Nothing has changed. Maybe just the manners, ceremonies, dances, Yet the movement of the hands in protecting the head is the same. The body writhes, jerks, and tries to pull away Its legs give out, it falls, the knees fly up, It turns blue, swells, salivates, and bleeds. Nothing has changed. Except of course for the course of boundaries, The lines of forests, coasts, deserts, and glaciers. Amid these landscapes traipses the soul, Disappears, comes back, draws nearer, moves away, Alien to itself, elusive At times certain, at others uncertain of its own existence, While the body is and is and is And has no place of its own.”

Tortures
Author:Wislawa Szymborska
Create image

“The world – whatever we might think when terrified by its vastness and our own impotence, or embittered by its indifference to individual suffering, of people, animals, and perhaps even plants, for why are we so sure that plants feel no pain; whatever we might think of its expanses pierced by the rays of stars surrounded by planets we've just begun to discover, planets already dead? still dead? we just don’t know; whatever we might think of this measureless theater to which we've got reserved tickets, but tickets whose lifespan is laughably short, bounded as it is by two arbitrary dates; whatever else we might think of this world – it is astonishing. But ‘astonishing’ is an epithet concealing a logical trap. We’re astonished, after all, by things that deviate from some well-known and universally acknowledged norm, from an obviousness we've grown accustomed to. Now the point is, there is no such obvious world. Our astonishment exists per se and isn't based on comparison with something else. Granted, in daily speech, where we don’t stop to consider every word, we all use phrases like ‘the ordinary world,’ ‘ordinary life,’ ‘the ordinary course of events’ … But in the language of poetry, where every word is weighed, nothing is usual or normal. Not a single stone and not a single cloud above it. Not a single day and not a single night after it. And above all, not a single existence, not anyone’s existence in this world.”

PoetryNobel Lecture
Author:Wislawa Szymborska
Create image

“Il gatto in un appartamento vuoto Morire – questo a un gatto non si fa. Perché cosa può fare il gatto in un appartamento vuoto? Arrampicarsi sulle pareti. Strofinarsi tra i mobili. Qui niente sembra cambiato, eppure tutto è mutato. Niente sembra spostato, eppure tutto è fuori posto. E la sera la lampada non brilla più. Si sentono passi sulle scale, ma non sono quelli. Anche la mano che mette il pesce nel piattino non è quella di prima. Qualcosa qui non comincia alla sua solita ora. Qualcosa qui non accade come dovrebbe. Qui c’era qualcuno, c’era, e poi d’un tratto è scomparso, e si ostina a non esserci. In ogni armadio si è guardato. Sui ripiani si è corso. Sotto il tappeto si è controllato. Si è perfino infranto il divieto di sparpagliare le carte. Cos’altro si può fare. Aspettare e dormire. Che provi solo a tornare, che si faccia vedere. Imparerà allora che con un gatto così non si fa. Gli si andrà incontro come se proprio non se ne avesse voglia, pian pianino, su zampe molto offese. E all’inizio niente salti né squittii.”

PoetryPoetry QuotesGattoWislawa Szymborska
Author:Wislawa Szymborska
Create image

“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.”

IfsBelieveLittlesPoetEasierFaultsDeeperContemporaryAcknowledgeMeritAshamedNever QuitSuspiciousSkeptical
Book:Poems, New and Collected, 1957-1997
Create image

“I've had the good fortune to read a lot of great American writers in translation, and my absolute beloved, for me one of the greatest writers ever, is Mark Twain. Yes, yes, yes. And Whitman, from whom the whole of 20th-century poetry sprung up. Whitman was the origin of things, someone with a completely different outlook. But I think that he's the father of the new wave in the world's poetry which to this very day is hitting the shore.”

ThinkingWorldDifferentWholeFatherCenturyMarkAbsolutesFortuneWaveBelovedShoreHitting20th CenturyOutlookTranslationsGood FortuneGreat AmericanSprungAmerican WriterSprung Up
Author:Wislawa Szymborska
Create image

“Most of the earth's inhabitants work to get by. They work because they have to. They didn't pick this or that kind of job out of passion; the circumstances of their lives did the choosing for them. 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. And there's no sign that coming centuries will produce any changes for the better as far as this goes.”

HumansKindEarthJobsPassionCenturyHavensProduceCircumstancesPicksMiseryBoringChange For The BetterLoveless
Author:Wislawa Szymborska
Create image

“Poets, if they're genuine, must keep repeating "I don't know." Each poem marks an effort to answer this statement, but as soon as the final period hits the page, the poet begins to hesitate, starts to realize that this particular answer was pure makeshift that's absolutely inadequate to boot. So the poets keep on trying, and sooner or later the consecutive results of their self-dissatisfaction are clipped together with a giant paperclip by literary historians and called their oeuvre.”

IfsKnowsTryingSelfTogetherRealizingAnswersResultsEffortParticularPoetPeriodsPurePagesMarkFinalsGenuineStatementsGiantsHistorianBootsSooner Or LaterInadequateDissatisfactionConsecutive
Author:Wislawa Szymborska
Create image

“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.'”

PeopleKnowsHas BeensMadeProblemInspirationJobsArtistCertainBornImaginationGroupsPoetCallingDifficultyCuriosityPrivilegeSolveChosenExclusiveSetbackSwarms
Author:Wislawa Szymborska
Create image