"He was poor until 1956, sometimes only able to afford portions of rice at a milk bar; he cheated on hunger with psychedrine or other available means. But that's when his writing exploded (...) he led the life of a French surrealist or a New York beatnik."

"Miron knew when he would die. He told me this: that he knows. That he is completely empty. There is a belief in Egypt that if you walk around the Sphinx and say a wish, it will come true. He had no wish then. He thought for a long time what to say, and finally came up with: just to make sure he doesn't run out of codeine for the rest of his life. And indeed there was plenty."

"I am a Denderowianka. I don't know what that means."

"everyone is for themselves the most important because if you don't agree with yourself it is what it is anyway"

"Białoszewski was quite a hipster."

"I went to the p p ph armacy A a apo thecary - Sir, we do not sell over the counter I ask her - Are you ours too? - I'm Vietnamese I left, with Asia, you never know"

"I'm not worried about (...) not being. Finally peace from everything. The state of not being well known to me. I haven't been there once. Until 1922. Others too. They just forget."

"Don't get lost. Be there. Let's pass each other, let's pass each other but let's not skip it. Let's pass. We, You who fly and you are pushed."

"She liked Art Nouveau. She was depressed. Now she meditates. Something starting with "ę". She vibrates."

"– Ralla la laa – radio with woman – uuu! – somewhere child – Ralla la laa! – woman – uu! – child – Ral la la – woman – uu – child – Ra la la – – u oh my ear went crazy? and then no: sunday moves hang in there, people!"

"i was afraid of my stomach squeaking confused him with an invisible mouse."

"I carry it with me some of my own place. When I lose it"

"i assumed: one day you'll get bored of me but still still i'm waiting you come still i'm waiting you're not coming yes, that's it [I didn't assumed]"

"my head hurts me and myself"

"I went into a full store; glass lamps were burning, I saw someone - who sat down, and what did I hear?... what did I hear? the rustling of bags and human speech. Well, really Really I'm back."

"i'm myself i'm stupid what should i do and what should i do"

"The chicken with cucumber is ready the weather is there she put her teeth on grab the bucket for water leans over teeth splash into the well and here are the guests on their way"

"that lying on like that and thinking it is naturally bad because in the nature i'm just lying there thinking then something will attack me and eat me"

"And [people] don't want to understand the first layer of the poem - its literalness. They immediately want to perceive something other than what is there."

"I have a furnace similar to the triumphal gate! They're taking away my furnace similar to the triumphal gate!! Give me back furnace similar to a triumphal gate!!! They took it away. All that was left of him grey naked cavity grey naked cavity And this is enough for me: grey naked cavity grey naked cavity gre – y – na – ked – cavi – ty greynakedcavity."

"when i lie down i am unable to get up"

"Yes in my hermitage it tempts: loneliness world memory and that I consider myself a poet."

"They're looking at me, so I probably have a face. Of all the familiar faces, I remember my own the least."

"she walked around and looked into pots - they don't cook buttermilk? and then she got drunk she was selling four linden trees with a cross as they said she said - I didn't sell it - I didn't sell it and beat with an iron"

"death death so much of her that it discourage the pride of dying"

"i have a break in my hair i'm here all the time just a hair and i would be beautiful"

"a man a Miron agonizes agonizes again he’s a talossfor an utter can’t utter er"

"How glad I am that you are the sky and the kaleidoscope, that you have so many artificial stars, that you shine so brightly in a monstrance, when you lift your hollow half-globe around the eyes under the air. How immeasurable in wealth you are, colander spoon!"

"First I went down to the street on stairs, oh, imagine, the stairs."

"existence by non-existence pulled by the hair"

"Don't think I'm unhappy. I'm glad I think. Think I'm glad"

"don't move from here don't go anywhere to no other planets unless they're here - so whatever happened pretend we don't know each other"

"You ask what is the most important thing in my life, I'll tell you: death and love - both."

"What to do? I have to get drunk on a bottle of ambrosia, What's left of my youthful banquets. I leave with a rose in my hand, with the moon under my armpit, And I leave the rest for new poets."

"And in spring - let me see spring, not Poland."

"A night with you - this is one thing that works like hashish, Only one thing you can believe in unconsciously. And I don't know if there is love apart from your body And I know you don't love me, that you will forget about me."

"I feel very bad today, I feel very sad, My thoughts are withered, sick, like flowers on a grave, Outside the windows, the sky hangs like a gray canvas. I can't love you or think about you today."

"I know now: it's as bright as the sun in the sky, And the heart must die under heavy mourning, Because I will never take you to myself for eternity. You will never be me and I will never be you."

"I was born in 1896 and my parents were married in 1919."

"What is very strange musically is that the only music that can really inspire me now is my own music — and I think that’s perfectly normal.I’ve found what I wanted: solitude and the space to think. [...] Soon my piano will arrive, because for composing I really need my instrument."

"It will be rather sad music. It will also probably be one of my most beautiful and deepest works. I've been thinking a lot about music, and life, but particularly about music because it's only in thinking about music, and about sound, that I can be happy. [...] This piece I'm doing is an important bridge to cross before beginning the opera, technical work, obviously, a rediscovery (A) of counterpoint (B) of more dramatic musical time, closer to speech, with atomic elements of different kinds."

"Mahler is perhaps the musician with whom I have the most in common, an exaggerated sensibility, Schmalz and at the same time a deep desire for purity, but an almost libidinal purity — a harmony of Judeo-Christian opposites, in balance—and moreover a horror of origins, in fact all the inherent complexes of a Jew and a Christian."

"As I told you on the phone, I'm not going to leave Paris, I'm staying home (I even made my first spaghetti sauce), I listen to the radio a lot (right now to marvelous Iranian vocal music), I compose, go to the cinema, to gay bars, and sleep."

"I love Germany as much as I hate France."

"Already in October at the same time as my course with Stockhausen I will have to learn 2 African languages. Probably around January I will go to South Africa to study African music. This project is terribly important for me because for me to spend one year at the sources of music and to understand the fundamental reasons for music is terribly important, essential to the formation of a composer."

"I've always been passionate, crazy about music, and believe me it's wonderful."

"As in the story where the master asks the pupil what he has learned and the pupil repeats shyly by heart what the master said, upon which the master responds by giving him a slap and asks the pupil to come back when he understands, I don't want to get a slap and I certainly don't want to write Balinese music![...] How can one not speak of love when a friend, by way of farewell, dances for me, when an old woman offers me a piece of fruit for my journey to Java because for her the furthest you can go from Bali is Java!"

"For the first time in my life I feel good in Paris!"