Quotes By Wislawa Szymborska

I've reached the age of self-knowledge, so I don't know anything. People who claim that they know something are responsible for most of the fuss in the world.

Sometimes I really have a spiritual need to say something more general about the world, and sometimes something personal.

You can find the entire cosmos lurking in its least remarkable objects.

Sometimes I write quickly, sometimes I spend several weeks on a single poem. I would really love for readers not to be able to guess which of the poems took so much work!

Get to know other worlds, if only for comparison. I am near, too near for him to dream of me.

After every war someone has to tidy up.

Generally speaking, life is so rich and full of variety; you have to remember all the time that there is a comical side to everything.

Though I may deny poets their monopoly on inspiration, I still place them in a select group of Fortune's darlings.

I cannot imagine any writer who would not fight for his peace and quiet.

When I was young I had a moment of believing in the Communist doctrine. I wanted to save the world through Communism. Quite soon I understood that it doesn't work, but I've never pretended it didn't happen to me.

All is mine but nothing owned, nothing owned for memory, and mine only while I look.

I like being near the top of a mountain. One can't get lost here.

Everyone needs solitude, especially a person who is used to thinking about what she experiences. Solitude is very important in my work as a mode of inspiration, but isolation is not good in this respect. I am not writing poetry about isolation.

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.

I don't believe I have a mission. Sometimes I really have a spiritual need to say something more general about the world, and sometimes something personal.

Life lasts but a few scratches of the claw in the sand.

I usually write for the individual reader -though I would like to have many such readers. There are some poets who write for people assembled in big rooms, so they can live through something collectively. I prefer my reader to take my poem and have a one-on-one relationship with it.

You know, I'm worried about Szymborska. I wish she would stop smoking.