Wislawa Szymborska
Wislawa Szymborska
Maria Wisława Anna Szymborska was a Polish poet, essayist, translator and recipient of the 1996 Nobel Prize in Literature. Born in Prowent, which has since become part of Kórnik, she later resided in Kraków until the end of her life. She is described as a "Mozart of Poetry". In Poland, Szymborska's books have reached sales rivaling prominent prose authors: although she once remarked in a poem, "Some Like Poetry", that no more than two out of a thousand people care...
NationalityPolish
ProfessionPoet
Date of Birth2 July 1923
CountryPoland
Even a graphomaniac is an extremely complicated person.
Carry on, then, if only for the moment that it takes a tiny galaxy to blink!
Their faith will make it easier for them to live and die.
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.
They say the first sentence in any speech is always the hardest. Well, that one's behind me, anyway.
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.
I'm fighting against the bad poet who is prone to using too many words.
Generally speaking, life is so rich and full of variety; you have to remember all the time that there is a comical side to everything.
There's simply too much fuss about myself,
Nothing can ever happen twice. In consequence, the sorry fact is that we arrive here improvised and leave without the chance to practice.
Life lasts but a few scratches of the claw in the sand.
I'm one-time-only to the marrow of my bones.
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.
But they know about us, they know, the four corners, and the chairs nearby us. Discerning shadows also know, and even the table keeps quiet.