Wislawa Szymborska: Whatever inspiration is, it's born from a continuo...

I prefer the absurdity of writing poems to the absurdity of not writing poems.

Wislawa Szymborska

writing-poems absurdity writing

Whether you want it or not,

Wislawa Szymborska

color eye past

Inspiration is not the exclusive privilege of poets or artists. There is, there has been, there will always be a certain group of people whom inspiration visits. It's made up of all those who've consciously chosen their calling and do their job with love and imagination. Difficulties and setbacks never quell their curiosity. A swarm of new questions emerges from every problem that they solve. Whatever inspiration is, it's born from a continuous 'I don't know.'

Wislawa Szymborska

artist inspiration jobs

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

Wislawa Szymborska

reading book thinking

This terrifying world is not devoid of charms, of the mornings that make waking up worthwhile.

Wislawa Szymborska

wake-up morning world

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

true-love easier people

At the very beginning of my creative life I loved humanity. I wanted to do something good for mankind. Soon I understood that it isn't possible to save mankind.

Wislawa Szymborska

mankind creative humanity

Such certainty is beautiful, but uncertainty is more beautiful still

Wislawa Szymborska

certainty stills beautiful

It's just not easy to explain to someone else what you don't understand yourself.

Wislawa Szymborska

easy

Any knowledge that doesn't lead to new questions quickly dies out: it fails to maintain the temperature required for sustaining life.

Wislawa Szymborska

temperature teaching teacher

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

Wislawa Szymborska

mines memories looks

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

Wislawa Szymborska

silence past firsts

All the best have something in common, a regard for reality, an agreement to its primacy over the imagination. Even the richest, most surprising and wild imagination is not as rich, wild and surprising as reality. The task of the poet is to pick singular threads from this dense, colorful fabric.

Wislawa Szymborska

wild-imagination agreement reality

Something doesn't start at its usual time. Something doesn't happen as it should. Someone was always, always here, then suddenly disappeared and stubbornly stays disappeared.

Wislawa Szymborska

usual should happens

There is so much Everything

Wislawa Szymborska

The joy of writing. The power of preserving. Revenge of a mortal hand.

Wislawa Szymborska

revenge writing hands

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

usual clouds night

In every tragedy, an element of comedy is preserved. Comedy is just tragedy reversed.

Wislawa Szymborska

comedy elements tragedy

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.

Wislawa Szymborska

writing people rooms

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

Wislawa Szymborska

imagination agreement reality

Whatever inspiration is, it's born from a continuous "I don't know.