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Wisława Szymborska
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“Whether you want it or not, / your genes have a political past, / your skin a political tone, / your eyes a political color, / What you say resounds, / what you don't say is also / politically significant.”
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“Here we are, naked lovers, / beautiful to each other — and that's enough — / the leaves of our eyelids our only covers, / we're lying amidst deep night.”
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“The trees? Could you explain to me / their unrelenting whispering? / The wind may know, you say to me, / but how, is just a mystery.”
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“I let him invent me / in the image of the reflection / in his eyes. I dance, I dance / in an abundance of sudden wings. / ... / When he's not looking at me, / I search for my reflection / on the wall. All I see / is a nail on which a painting hung.”
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“Just let him come back, / let him show up. / Then he'll find out / you don't do that to a cat. / Going toward him / faking reluctance, / slowly, / on very offended paws. / And no jumping, no purring at first.”
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“Every beginning, after all, / is nothing but a sequel, / and the book of events / is always open in the middle.”
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“Certain misfortunes / were never to happen again / such as war and hunger and so forth.”
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“We are children of our era; / our era is political. / ... / Meanwhile people were dying, / animals perishing, / houses burning, / and fields growing wild, / just as in times most remote / and less political.”
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“There is no life that / couldn't be immortal, / if only for a split second.”
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“I know that as long as I live nothing can excuse me, / since I am my own obstacle. / Do not hold it against me, O speech, that I borrow weighty words, / and then labor to make them light.”
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“I'm old-fashioned and think that reading books is the most glorious pastime that humankind has yet devised.”
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“Such is the memoir's tone. Noble and touching. But is it sincere? Oh, let's not be petty, seeking sincerity in memoirs doesn't make much sense.”
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“In his work, every memoirist leaves behind a better or worse likeness of the people he knew, alongside two self-portraits. The first of these two is painted intentionally, while the second is unplanned, accidental. It goes without saying that the first is more flattering than the second, and the second is more faithful than the first.”
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“Today when two people decide upon a thoughtless and precipitate abbreviation of the physical space between them, they think, at least at that moment, that they're mutually attracted and drawn together by an overwhelming force.”
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“It's a well-known fact: in order to follow doctor's orders, you have to be healthy as a horse.”
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“Animals don't even try to look any different from what nature intended. They humbly wear their shells, scales, spines, plumes, pelts, and down. ... The conscious impulse to change one's appearance is found only among humans.”
Wisława Szymborska, Polish poet, translator, Nobel winner
(1923)
Full name: Wisława Szymborska-Włodek.