Give me a daughter with your stubborn heart, or your even temper. Give our children your dark-bright eyes, or your enchanted smile. So that even when we are gone, the world will find within them all of the reasons why I loved you.
We are a thick skinned people with emtpy souls. We spend our days playing dice, chess, or sleeping – and we say we are the best people that ever came to mankind?
Life doesn’t stop after losing someone, but it goes on without them differently.
Our shouting is louder than our actions, Our swords are taller than us, This is our tragedy. In short We wear the cape of civilisation But our souls live in the stone age.
When a man is in love how can he use old words? Should a woman desiring her lover lie down with grammarians and linguists? I said nothing to the woman I loved but gathered love’s adjectives into a suitcase and fled from all languages.
Dive into the sea, or stay away.
We praise like frogs, Swear like frogs, Turn midgets into heroes, and heroes into scum: We never stop and think.
Your love taught me to grieve and I have been needing, for centuries a woman to make me grieve for a woman, to cry upon her arms like a sparrow for a woman to gather my pieces like shards of broken crystal.
It’s painful to listen to the barking of dogs.
What we feel is beyond words. We should be ashamed of our poems.
The word is a bouncing ball The ruler throws from his balcony. The word has been a shot of morphine. Rulers calm their people with speeches.
O Sultan, my master, if my clothes are ripped and torn it is because your dogs with claws are allowed to tear me.
We killed you and it was not new for us, we killed the companions of the Prophet and the friends of God. O how many Messengers did we slay? O how many imams? We killed you and you prayed the night prayer, as all of our days are struggle – and all of our days are Karbala.
Light is more important than the lantern, The poem more important than the notebook.
Not everything in the heart can be said, so god created sighs, tears, long sleep, cold smile and shivering hands.
It’s not a shame if a man learns something from a woman’s heart which makes him more gentle and human.
Io non posseggo nulla al mondo, tranne i tuoi occhi e la mia tristezza.
I do not resemble your other lovers, my lady. Should another give you a cloud, I give you rain. Should he give you a lantern, I will give you the moon. Should he give you a branch, I will give you the trees, and if another gives you a ship, I shall give you the journey.
I throw my passport into the sea, And name you my country, I throw all my dictionaries in the fire, And name you my language.
They see that giving birth to a man is hope, and giving birth to a woman is a disappointment, although every man’s dream is a woman and every woman’s disappointment is a man.