Wislawa Szymborska

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

Each of us has a very rich nature and can look at things objectively, from a distance, and at the same time can have something more personal to say about them. I am trying to look at the world, and at myself, from many different points of view. I think many poets have this duality.

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.

You have to remember all the time that there is a comical side to everything.

Though I may deny poets their monopoly on inspiration, I still place them in a select group of Fortune's darlings.