How to Start Writing (and When to Stop) Quotes

“Read good poetry and read it well, tracing the countless incarnations of every word. These are after all the same words lying dead in dictionaries or leading a gray life in speech. Then why do they shine like new in poems, as if the poet had just discovered them?”
― Wisława Szymborska, How to Start Writing (and When to Stop): Advice for Writers

“Even poetry has its prosaic side.”
― Wisława Szymborska, How to Start Writing (and When to Stop): Advice for Writers

“We automatically disqualify all poems about spring as a matter of principle. This topic no longer exists in poetry. It continues to thrive in life of course. But that is a different matter.”
― Wisława Szymborska, How to Start Writing (and When to Stop): Advice for Writers

“The most important word in our planet's lexicon is "why." We suspect this is true of other galaxies too.”
― Wisława Szymborska, How to Start Writing (and When to Stop): Advice for Writers

“Each human act has countless causes. The author works to reveal these causes.”
― Wisława Szymborska, How to Start Writing (and When to Stop): Advice for Writers

“Such stories may predominate in daily life, but when literature starts taking cues from statistics, it seals its own fate.”
― Wisława Szymborska, How to Start Writing (and When to Stop): Advice for Writers

“Even boredom must be described with passion.”
― Wisława Szymborska, How to Start Writing (and When to Stop): Advice for Writers

“Poetry (whatever we may say) is, was, and will always be a game. And as very child knows, all games have rules. So why do grown-ups forget?”
― Wisława Szymborska, How to Start Writing (and When to Stop): Advice for Writers

“At seventeen we imitate everything except ourselves.”
― Wisława Szymborska, How to Start Writing (and When to Stop): Advice for Writers

“In prose... at any moment the door will open, someone will enter, something will happen. In poetry, the description itself must happen.”
― Wisława Szymborska, How to Start Writing (and When to Stop): Advice for Writers