Wisława Szymborska: Quotes about time

“Something doesn't start
at its usual time.
Something doesn't happen
as it should.”

Wisława Szymborska

"Cat in an Empty Apartment"
Poems New and Collected (1998), The End and the Beginning (1993)
Context: 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.

Time

“Our times are still not safe and sane enough
for faces to show ordinary sorrow.”

Wisława Szymborska

"Smiles"
Poems New and Collected (1998), A Large Number (1976)
Context: The going's rough, and so we need the laugh
of bright incisors, molars of goodwill.
Our times are still not safe and sane enough
for faces to show ordinary sorrow.

Time

“For the sake of research,
the big picture
and definitive conclusions,
one would have to transcend time,
in which everything scurries and whirls.”

Wisława Szymborska

"We're Extremely Fortunate"
Poems New and Collected (1998), The End and the Beginning (1993)

Time

“"There's nothing new under the sun": that's what you wrote, Ecclesiastes. But you yourself were born new under the sun. And the poem you created is also new under the sun, since no one wrote it down before you. And all your readers are also new under the sun, since those who lived before you couldn't read your poem. And that cypress under which you're sitting hasn't been growing since the dawn of time. It came into being by way of another cypress similar to yours, but not exactly the same.”

Wisława Szymborska

The Poet and the World (1996)

Way , Time , Reading , Sun

“We're extremely fortunate
not to know precisely
the kind of world we live in.
One would have
to live a long, long time,
unquestionably longer
than the world itself.”

Wisława Szymborska

"We're Extremely Fortunate"
Poems New and Collected (1998), The End and the Beginning (1993)