Wislawa Szymborska

“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.”

“Somewhere out there the world must have an end.”

“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.”

“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.”

“After every war someone has to tidy up.”

“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.”

“Poetic talent doesn't operate in a vacuum. There is a spirit of Polish poetry.”

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

“When I was young I had a moment of believing in the Communist doctrine. I wanted to save the world through Communism. Quite soon I understood that it doesn't work, but I've never pretended it didn't happen to me.”