Adam Zagajewski Quotes

#1. A certain traveler who knew many continents was asked what he found most remarkable of all. He replied: the ubiquity of sparrows.

Adam Zagajewski

#2. But I was only a chaotic walker, nobody could stop me; even a totalitarian state was not able to control my daydreams, my poetic fascinations, the pattern of my walking.

Adam Zagajewski

#3. Human life and objects and trees vibrate with mysterious meanings, which can be deciphered like cuneiform writing. There exists a meaning, hidden from day to day, but accessible in moments of greatest attentiveness, in those moments when consciousness loves the world.

Adam Zagajewski

#4. Cities at daybreak are no one's,
and have no names.
And I, too, have no name,
dawn, the stars growing pale,
the train picking up speed.

Adam Zagajewski

#5. This day's nothingness
as if from spite
became a flame
and scorched the lips
of children and poets.

Adam Zagajewski

#6. In summer the empire of insects spreads.

Adam Zagajewski

#7. Time takes life away
and gives us memory, gold with flame,
black with embers.

Adam Zagajewski

#8. In my defense I have
only silence, dew on the grass, a nightingale
among the branches. You forgive it,
its long tenure in the leaves of one aspen
after another, drops of eternity, grams
of amazement, and the sleepy complaints of the poor poets

Adam Zagajewski

#9. Clear moments are so short.
There is much more darkness. More
ocean than terra firma. More
shadow than form.

Adam Zagajewski

#10. I drink from a small spring,
my thirst exceeds the ocean.

Adam Zagajewski