Wislawa Szymborska Quotations | Page 2

You know, I'm worried about Szymborska. I wish she would stop smoking.

Nothing's a gift, it's all on loan. Out of every hundred people, those who always know better: fifty-two.

I'd have to be really quick to describe clouds - a split second's enough for them to start being something else.

It's a well-known fact: in order to follow doctor's orders, you have to be healthy as a horse.

Carry on, then, if only for the moment that it takes a tiny galaxy to blink!

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.

Keep up the good work, if only for a while, if only for the twinkling of a tiny galaxy.

What does the world get from two people/who exist in a world of their own?

Most of the earth's inhabitants work to get by. They work because they have to. They didn't pick this or that kind of job out of passion; the circumstances of their lives did the choosing for them. 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. And there's no sign that coming centuries will produce any changes for the better as far as this goes.

Memory at last has what I sought.