Quote by Wisława Szymborska: “I prefer the absurdity of writing poems to the absurdity of not writing poems.”

Everything we do is in some sense absurd — we are small creatures living briefly on a spinning planet. But choosing to write poems, to make meaning, to try to say something true — that absurdity is preferable to the alternative of giving up. This is a quietly radical defense of creativity.

Szymborska delivered her Nobel Prize lecture in Stockholm in December 1996, reflecting on the strangeness of being a poet and the impossibility of ever fully knowing or saying anything. Poland had been through decades of communist rule and was rebuilding as a democracy. Her lecture is a meditation on wonder, uncertainty, and the courage required to keep trying to make sense of the world.

Polish poet who won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1996. Her poetry is celebrated for its wit, philosophical precision, and ability to find the extraordinary in ordinary experience. Collections such as View with a Grain of Sand brought her an international readership who treasured her ironic humanism.