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Polish Quotes

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Polish Quotes

“Never talk to waiters like that," Kit said. "Can I help it," he said, "if I only went one year to finishing school?" "It isn't manners," she said like a sensible schoolteacher quietly disciplining a small boy, "it just isn't smart." I thought of the time I first told him not to say ain't. He took this the same way, a little peeved but making mental notes. I noticed he was never too much of an egotist to take criticism when he knew it would help. It was part of his genius for self-propulsion. I was beginning to see what Kit had for Sammy. Of course she stood for something never within his reach before. But it was more than that. Sammy seemed to know that his career was entering a new cycle where polish paid off. You could almost see him filing off the rough edges against the sharp blade of her mind.”

CriticismMannersPolishFinishing SchoolEgotistWaitersSelf Propulsion
Book:What Makes Sammy Run?
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“Wszystkie światy lecą to na dół, to w górę - człowiek każdy, robak każdy krzyczy - "Ja Bogiem" - i co jeden po drugim konają - gasną komety i słońca - Chrystus nas już nie zbawi - krzyż swój wziął w ręce obie i rzucił w otchłań. - Czy słyszysz, jak ten krzyż, nadzieja milionów, rozbija się o gwiazdy, łamie się, pęka, rozlatuje w kawałki, coraz niżej i niżej - aż tuman wielki powstał z jego odłamków? - Najświętsza Bogarodzica jedna się jeszcze modli i gwiazdy, Jej służebnice, nie odbiegły Jej dotąd - ale i Ona pójdzie, kędy idzie świat cały.”

Poetry QuotesApocalypsePolishReligion And PhiloshophyPolish Literature
Book:Nie-Boska komedia
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“The writing style which is most natural for you is bound to echo the speech you heard when a child. English was the novelist Joseph Conrad's third language, and much of that seems piquant in his use of English was no doubt colored by his first language, which was Polish. And lucky indeed is the writer who has grown up in Ireland, for the English spoken there is so amusing and musical. I myself grew up in Indianapolis, where common speech sounds like a band saw cutting galvanized tin, and employs a vocabulary as unornamental as a monkey wrench. In some of the more remote hollows of Appalachia, children still grow up hearing songs and locutions of Elizabethan times. Yes, and many Americans grow up hearing a language other than English, or an English dialect a majority of Americans cannot understand. All these varieties of speech are beautiful, just as the varieties of butterflies are beautiful. No matter what your first language, you should treasure it all your life. If it happens not to be standard English, and if it shows itself when you write standard English, the result is usually delightful, like a very pretty girl with one eye that is green and one that is blue. I myself find that I trust my own writing most, and others seem to trust it most, too, when I sound most like a person from Indianapolis, which is what I am. What alternatives do I have? The one most vehemently recommended by teachers has no doubt been pressed on you, as well: to write like cultivated Englishmen of a century or more ago.”

WritingLanguageTrustProsePolishDialectIrishMother TongueWriting StyleJoseph ConradFirst Language
Author:Kurt Vonnegut
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“Prawda o jej stanowisku w tej sprawie nie pokrywa się ze spotykanymi u nas stereotypami. Róża Luksemburg była osobą intymnie przywiązaną do polskiej kultury. Władała biegle kilkoma obcymi językami (rosyjskim, niemieckim i francuskim) i większość swego życia spędziła w Szwajcarii i w Niemczech, jednakże język polski był i pozostał jej pierwszym i najbliższym językiem. Tysiące Niemców dowiedziało się po raz pierwszy właśnie z jej artykułów prasowych, kim był Adam Mickiewicz, jej ulubiony poeta. Słowem i pismem walczyła z przymusową germanizacją Polaków w zaborze pruskim. W 1900 r. ogłosiła w tej sprawie w Poznaniu m.in. broszurę pt. Przeciwko wynaradawianiu. Programowo wypowiadała się za autonomią dla zaboru rosyjskiego i czyniła to w sposób bardziej bezkompromisowy niż współcześni jej przywódcy endecji. Nie była natomiast zwolenniczką umieszczenia hasła niepodległości Polski w programie SDKPiL.”

HistoricalCommunistSocialistPolishRóża Luksemburg
Book:O rewolucji
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“He had good, open features and a confident air; his blue eyes were wide and watchful, but something about them seemed to hint that in different days and different times they could twinkle and sparkle with fun and mischief. His clothing was tattered and threadbare, but there was an energy to him that did not admit of pity. Somehow, despite his ragged condition, he still looked like a man who had carried a weapon and commanded other men in the not-too-distant past.”

WarSoldierPolishWwiiPolandWarriorsOfficerWwii Poland
Book:Treasures of Darkness
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“There is one thing I like about the Poles—their language. Polish, when it is spoken by intelligent people, puts me in ecstasy. The sound of the language evokes strange images in which there is always a greensward of fine spiked grass in which hornets and snakes play a great part. I remember days long back when Stanley would invite me to visit his relatives; he used to make me carry a roll of music because he wanted to show me off to these rich relatives. I remember this atmosphere well because in the presence of these smooth−tongued, overly polite, pretentious and thoroughly false Poles I always felt miserably uncomfortable. But when they spoke to one another, sometimes in French, sometimes in Polish, I sat back and watched them fascinatedly. They made strange Polish grimaces, altogether unlike our relatives who were stupid barbarians at bottom. The Poles were like standing snakes fitted up with collars of hornets. I never knew what they were talking about but it always seemed to me as if they were politely assassinating some one. They were all fitted up with sabres and broad−swords which they held in their teeth or brandished fiercely in a thundering charge. They never swerved from the path but rode rough−shod over women and children, spiking them with long pikes beribboned with blood−red pennants. All this, of course, in the drawing−room over a glass of strong tea, the men in butter−colored gloves, the women dangling their silly lorgnettes. The women were always ravishingly beautiful, the blonde houri type garnered centuries ago during the Crusades. They hissed their long polychromatic words through tiny, sensual mouths whose lips were soft as geraniums. These furious sorties with adders and rose petals made an intoxicating sort of music, a steel−stringed zithery slipper−gibber which could also register anomalous sounds like sobs and falling jets of water.”

HumorLanguagePolishPolandPolesPolish Language
Book:Sexus
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“Wianki are traditionally worn by maidens at festivals, especially on St. John's Eve, which was always near Midsummer's Eve. At the end of the festival, the maidens would throw their flower wreaths into the water. If yours became tangled with another girl's, then you were destined to be best friends. If it sank, then you would likely never get married and probably have a lot of cats. But, if a young man snatched your wreath from the water, then the two of you were destined to be married.”

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Book:The Optimist's Guide to Letting Go
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“There’s a famous quote regarding Polanski. Perhaps Jack Nicholson said it, perhaps someone else, but it goes, “Polanski is the five-foot Pole I wouldn’t touch with a ten-foot pole.” So, yes, the world seems to despise him. I, however, love his work. It’s so much funnier and well-constructed than the pompous stuff of Kubrick. Polanski balances between camp and horror in much the same way Billy Wilder did.”

PolishInterviewWilderKrytykapolitycznaMichalhernesPolanski
Author:Chuck Palahniuk
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“In my version neither story would get off the ground because all the spouses involved in both stories would honor their partners and remain faithful. Both ‘Patient’ and “Piano’ glorify and romanticize adultery; and that only works in fiction when it’s the female who’s cuckolding the male. If a story shows a man cheating on his wife… well, that’s never a cultural masterpiece, is it?”

PianoPolishInterviewKrytykapolitycznaMichalhernesEnglishpatient
Author:Chuck Palahniuk
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“In the future? People will realize the opposite of what Andy Warhol – yes, a Pole! – predicted. Instead of everyone getting fifteen minutes of fame, everyone will get fifteen minutes of privacy. Satellites, cameras, the internet, these are tracking us every second. The next generation of young people will crave solitude. The non-stop gaze of mass media ogling us, that’s the new monster.”

PolishMonsterInterviewWarholKrytykapolitycznaMichalhernes
Author:Chuck Palahniuk
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