I prefer the hell of chaos to the hell of order. Wislawa Szymborska More Quotes by Wislawa Szymborska More Quotes From Wislawa Szymborska I've had the good fortune to read a lot of great American writers in translation, and my absolute beloved, for me one of the greatest writers ever, is Mark Twain. Yes, yes, yes. And Whitman, from whom the whole of 20th-century poetry sprung up. Whitman was the origin of things, someone with a completely different outlook. But I think that he's the father of the new wave in the world's poetry which to this very day is hitting the shore. Wislawa Szymborska sprung-upfatherthinking Out of every hundred people, those who always know better: fifty-two. Wislawa Szymborska fiftytwopeople Well, one is inspired by the whole of life, one's own and somebody else's. You know how sometimes you hear great music, and music is completely untranslatable into words, into any words. A certain tension that is born when one listens to music could aid you in expressing something absolutely different. Wislawa Szymborska inspireddifferentsometimes 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 lifes wisdom. Wislawa Szymborska painwisdomsympathy I'm drowning in papers. Wislawa Szymborska papersdrowningpaper It's a well-known fact: in order to follow doctor's orders, you have to be healthy as a horse. Wislawa Szymborska horsedoctorshealth Today when two people decide upon a thoughtless and precipitate abbreviation of the physical space between them, they think, at least at that moment, that they're mutually attracted and drawn together by an overwhelming force. Wislawa Szymborska spacesexthinking 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! Wislawa Szymborska ablewritingsometimes There's simply too much fuss about myself. Wislawa Szymborska too-much 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 losses. Wislawa Szymborska rejectionchoicesloss 'There's nothing new under the sun': that's what you wrote, Ecclesiastes. But you yourself were born new under the sun. Wislawa Szymborska yourselfnewyousun 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. Wislawa Szymborska spiritualsometimesbelieveworld Take it not amiss, O speech, that I borrow weighty words, and later try hard to make them seem light. Wislawa Szymborska wordstryspeechlight Get to know other worlds, if only for comparison. I am near, too near for him to dream of me. Wislawa Szymborska i-amknowmedream
