All imperfection is easier to tolerate if served up in small doses.
Wislawa SzymborskaRead
I'm fighting against the bad poet who is prone to using too many words.
Interpretation
The quote criticizes writers who overcomplicate their poetry by using excessive language.
Wislawa Szymborska highlights the importance of clarity and precision in poetry, suggesting that good poetry should communicate its message effectively without unnecessary verbosity. By criticizing the 'bad poet,' she underscores the value of simplicity and the art of using just the right number of words to evoke emotion and meaning.
In practice
This quote can be used in a writing workshop to encourage participants to focus on clarity in their poetry.
All imperfection is easier to tolerate if served up in small doses.
I started earning a living as a poet rather early on.
But they know about us, they know, the four corners, and the chairs nearby us. Discerning shadows also know, and even the table keeps quiet.
I prefer the absurdity of writing poems to the absurdity of not writing poems.
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.
Every beginning is only a sequel, after all, and the book of events is always open halfway through.
I sent The World Well Lost to one editor who rejected it on sight, and then wrote a letter to every other editor in the field warning them against the story, and urging them to reject it on sight without reading it.
... and the very folds of the curtains contained secrets and sighs.
In accordance with the terms of the Clarke-Asimov treaty, the second-best science writer dedicates this book to the second-best science-fiction writer. [dedication to Isaac Asimov from Arthur C. Clarke in his book Report on Planet Three]
There is something called the rapture of the deep, and it refers to what happens when a deep-sea diver spends too much time at the bottom of the ocean and can't tell which way is up. When he surfaces, he's liable to have a condition called the bends, where the body can't adapt to the oxygen levels in the atmosphere. All of this happens to me when I surface from a great book.
His books were the closest thing he had to furniture and he lived in them the way other men live in easy chairs.
As Faulkner says, all of us have the capacity in us for great good and for great evil, for love but also for hate. I wanted to write those kinds of complex character in a fantasy, and not just have all the good people get together to fight the bad guy.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.