1
The killer whale's heart weighs one hundred kilosbut in other respects it is light. There is nothing more animal-likethan a clear conscienceon the third planet of the Sun.Wislawa Szymborska
2
Keep up the good work, if only for a while, if only for the twinkling of a tiny galaxy.Wislawa Szymborska
3
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.Wislawa Szymborska
4
Nothing can ever happen twice. In consequence, the sorry fact is that we arrive here improvised and leave without the chance to practice.Wislawa Szymborska
5
Any knowledge that doesn't lead to new questions quickly dies out: it fails to maintain the temperature required for sustaining life.Wislawa Szymborska
6
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.Wislawa Szymborska
7
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.Wislawa Szymborska
8
All the best have something in common, a regard for reality, an agreement to its primacy over the imagination.Wislawa Szymborska
9
I cannot imagine any writer who would not fight for his peace and quiet.Wislawa Szymborska
10
I cannot speak for more than an hour exclusively about poetry. At that point, life itself takes over again.Wislawa Szymborska
11
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.Wislawa Szymborska
12
Unfortunately, poetry is not born in noise, in crowds, or on a bus. There have to be four walls and the certainty that the telephone will not ring. That's what writing is all about.Wislawa Szymborska
13
Poetic talent doesn't operate in a vacuum. There is a spirit of Polish poetry.Wislawa Szymborska
14
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.Wislawa Szymborska
15
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.Wislawa Szymborska