Wislawa Szymborska

a stone / which in its own archaic, simpleminded way / sees life as a chain of failed attempts.

I am who I am.A coincidence no less unthinkablethan any other.I could have had differentancestors, after all.I could have flutteredfrom another nestor crawled bescaledfrom under another tree.Nature's wardrobeholds a fair supply of costumes:spider, seagull, field mouse.Each fits perfectly right offand is dutifully worninto shreds.

Memories come to mind like excavated statuesthat have misplaced their heads.

My choices are rejections, since there is no other way,but what I reject is more numerous,denser, more demanding than before.A little poem, a sigh, at the cost of indescribable loss.

When I pronounce the word Future,the first syllable already belongs to the past.When I pronounce the word Silence,I destroy it.

We live longerbut less preciselyand in shorter sentences.

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.

Loveless work, boring work, work valued only because others haven't got even that much, however loveless and boring--this is one of the harshest human miseries.

We have a soul at times.No one__ got it non-stop,for keeps.Day after day,year after yearmay pass without it.Sometimesit will settle for awhileonly in childhood__ fears and raptures.Sometimes only in astonishmentthat we are old.It rarely lends a handin uphill tasks,like moving furniture,or lifting luggage,or going miles in shoes that pinch.It usually steps outwhenever meat needs choppingor forms have to be filled.For every thousand conversationsit participates in one,if even that,since it prefers silence.Just when our body goes from ache to pain,it slips off-duty.It__ picky:it doesn__ like seeing us in crowds,our hustling for a dubious advantageand creaky machinations make it sick.Joy and sorrowaren__ two different feelings for it.It attends usonly when the two are joined.We can count on itwhen we__e sure of nothingand curious about everything.Among the material objectsit favors clocks with pendulumsand mirrors, which keep on workingeven when no one is looking.It won__ say where it comes fromor when it__ taking off again,though it__ clearly expecting such questions.We need itbut apparentlyit needs usfor some reason too.

I'm old-fashioned and think that reading books is the most glorious pastime that humankind has yet devised.

Poetic talent doesn't operate in a vacuum. There is a spirit of Polish poetry.

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.

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.

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.

I cannot speak for more than an hour exclusively about poetry. At that point, life itself takes over again.

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.

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

All the best have something in common, a regard for reality, an agreement to its primacy over the imagination.