SOURCE: Szymborska, Wisława. “I Don't Know.” New Republic 215, no. 27 (30 December 1996): 27-29.

In the following speech of acceptance for the 1996 Nobel Prize for Literature, Szymborska contemplates the centrality of the thought “I don't know” to poets and other individuals who live and work by inspiration.

They say that the first sentence in any speech is always the hardest. Well, that one's behind me. But I have a feeling that the sentences to come—the third, the sixth, the tenth, and so on, up to the final line—will be just as hard, since I'm supposed to talk about poetry. I've said very little on the subject—next to nothing, in fact. And whenever I have said anything, I've always had the sneaking suspicion that I'm not very good at it. This is why my lecture will be rather short. Imperfection is easier to tolerate in small doses.

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