The metaphor for Palestine is stronger than the Palestine of reality.
I see poetry as spiritual medicine.
The importance of poetry is not measured, finally, by what the poet says but by how he says it.
I’ve built my homeland, I’ve even founded my state – in my language.
I am not a lover of Israel, of course. I have no reason to be. But I don’t hate Jews.
History laughs at both the victim and the aggressor.
I learnt all the words worthy of the court of blood So that I could break the rule I learnt all the words and broke them up To make a single word: Homeland...
And what I don’t understand I grasp it only when it’s too late.
I want to find a language that transforms language itself into steel for the spirit – a language to use against these sparkling insects, these jets.
I never wanted children; maybe I’m afraid of responsibility.
I wish I were a candle in the darkness.
May poetry and God’s name have mercy on us!
Sometimes I feel as if I am read before I write. When I write a poem about my mother, Palestinians think my mother is a symbol for Palestine. But I write as a poet, and my mother is my mother. She’s not a symbol.
The poem is in my hands, and can run stories through her hands.
Sarcasm helps me overcome the harshness of the reality we live, eases the pain of scars and makes people smile.
For the Arabs in Israel there is always a tension between nationality and identity.
When a writer declares that his first book is his best, that is bad. I progress successively from book to book.
No night is long enough for us to dream twice.
We have on this earth what makes life worth living: April’s hesitation, the aroma of bread at dawn, a woman’s point of view about men, the works of Aeschylus, the beginning of love, grass on a stone, mothers living on a flute’s sigh and the invaders’ fear of memories.
Perhaps death is a metaphor to remind us of a secret of life we failed to notice.