I’m drowning in papers.
About Wislawa Szymborska
Maria Wislawa Anna Szymborskawas a Polish poet, essayist, translator, and recipient of the 1996 Nobel Prize in Literature. Born in Prowent (now part of Kornik in west-central Poland), she resided in Krakow until the end of her life.
More quotes from Wislawa Szymborska
I slide my arm from under the sleeper’s head and it is numb, full of swarming pins, on the tip of each, waiting to be counted, the fallen angels sit.
Polish poet, Nobel Prize winner
Poetic talent doesn’t operate in a vacuum. There is a spirit of Polish poetry.
Polish poet, Nobel Prize winner
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.
Polish poet, Nobel Prize winner
All is mine but nothing owned, nothing owned for memory, and mine only while I look.
Polish poet, Nobel Prize winner
Keep up the good work, if only for a while, if only for the twinkling of a tiny galaxy.
Polish poet, Nobel Prize winner
You can find the entire cosmos lurking in its least remarkable objects.
Polish poet, Nobel Prize winner
Though I may deny poets their monopoly on inspiration, I still place them in a select group of Fortune’s darlings.
Polish poet, Nobel Prize winner
Somewhere out there the world must have an end.
Polish poet, Nobel Prize winner
I cannot speak for more than an hour exclusively about poetry. At that point, life itself takes over again.
Polish poet, Nobel Prize winner
This terrifying world is not devoid of charms, of the mornings that make waking up worthwhile.
Polish poet, Nobel Prize winner
Take it not amiss, O speech, that I borrow weighty words, and later try hard to make them seem light.
Polish poet, Nobel Prize winner
I’m drowning in papers.
Polish poet, Nobel Prize winner
In every tragedy, an element of comedy is preserved. Comedy is just tragedy reversed.
Polish poet, Nobel Prize winner
Even the worst book can give us something to think about.
Polish poet, Nobel Prize winner
Nothing can ever happen twice. In consequence, the sorry fact is that we arrive here improvised and leave without the chance to practice.
Polish poet, Nobel Prize winner
Is a decision made in advance really any kind of choice.
Polish poet, Nobel Prize winner
Any knowledge that doesn’t lead to new questions quickly dies out: it fails to maintain the temperature required for sustaining life.
Polish poet, Nobel Prize winner
All the best have something in common, a regard for reality, an agreement to its primacy over the imagination.
Polish poet, Nobel Prize winner
All imperfection is easier to tolerate if served up in small doses.
Polish poet, Nobel Prize winner
Poets yearn, of course, to be published, read, and understood, but they do little, if anything, to set themselves above the common herd and the daily grind.
Polish poet, Nobel Prize winner
Let the people who never find true love keep saying that there’s no such thing. Their faith will make it easier for them to live and die.
Polish poet, Nobel Prize winner
After every war someone has to tidy up.
Polish poet, Nobel Prize winner
I like being near the top of a mountain. One can’t get lost here.
Polish poet, Nobel Prize winner
Life lasts but a few scratches of the claw in the sand.
Polish poet, Nobel Prize winner
Every beginning is only a sequel, after all, and the book of events is always open halfway through.
Polish poet, Nobel Prize winner
I started earning a living as a poet rather early on.
Polish poet, Nobel Prize winner
It’s just not easy to explain to someone else what you don’t understand yourself.
Polish poet, Nobel Prize winner
Get to know other worlds, if only for comparison. I am near, too near for him to dream of me.
Polish poet, Nobel Prize winner