3 Quotes & Sayings By Zbigniew Herbert

Zbigniew Herbert was born in Płock, Poland. His novels are considered among the classics of modern literature, especially the trilogy "The Desert" (1962–65), "The Painted Bird" (1968) and "A Prophet" (1972). He won numerous literary awards including the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1970. He died in Warsaw in 1982.

1
You can be a good painter if you study Cézanne's vision. Whoever dares to copy Van Gogh falls inevitably into the hell of imitators. For this painter didn't care about masterpieces, or even good paintings... but about what is beyond all painting, all art. Zbigniew Herbert
2
Very early on, near the beginning of my writing life, I came to believe that I had to seize on some object outside of literature. Writing as a sylistic exercise seemed barren to me. Poetry as the art of the word made me yawn. I also understood that I couldn't sustain myself very long on the poems of others. I had to go out from myself and literature, look around in the world and lay hold of other spheres of reality. Zbigniew Herbert