Wislawa Szymborska

All imperfection is easier to tolerate if served up in small doses.

I started earning a living as a poet rather early on.

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.

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

I've reached the age of self-knowledge, so I don't know anything. People who claim that they know something are responsible for most of the fuss in the world.

Every beginning is only a sequel, after all, and the book of events is always open halfway through.

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

After every war someone has to tidy up.

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.

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

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

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.

Even the worst book can give us something to think about.

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 like being near the top of a mountain. One can't get lost here.

You can find the entire cosmos lurking in its least remarkable objects.

Get to know other worlds, if only for comparison. I am near, too near for him to dream of me.

Nothing's a gift, it's all on loan

I'm fighting against the bad poet who is prone to using too many words.

I slide my arm from under the sleeper's head and it is numb, full of swarming pins, on the tip of each, waiting to be counted, the fallen angels sit.

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