Mahmoud Darwish

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.

Far away, our dreams have nothing to do with what we do. The wind carries the night, and passes on, aimless.

Some people ask, 'How do you attract the young and so many different people when your poetry is complicated and different?' I say, 'My accomplishment is that my readers trust me and accept my suggestions for change.'

Against barbarity, poetry can resist only by confirming its attachment to human fragility like a blade of grass growing on a wall while armies march by.

The days have taught you not to trust happiness because it hurts when it deceives.

A person can only be born in one place. However, he may die several times elsewhere: in the exiles and prisons, and in a homeland transformed by the occupation and oppression into a nightmare.

The metaphor for Palestine is stronger than the Palestine of reality.

The importance of poetry is not measured, finally, by what the poet says but by how he says it.

The stars had only one task: they taught me how to read. They taught me I had a language in heaven and another language on earth.

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.

One day, I will be a poet. Water will depend on my visions.

For the Arabs in Israel there is always a tension between nationality and identity.

To be under occupation, to be under siege, is not a good inspiration for poetry.

I've built my homeland, I've even founded my state - in my language.

I see poetry as spiritual medicine.

I believe in the power of poetry, which gives me reasons to look ahead and identify a glint of light.

Exile is more than a geographical concept. You can be an exile in your homeland, in your own house, in a room.

Sarcasm helps me overcome the harshness of the reality we live, eases the pain of scars and makes people smile.

I wish I were a candle in the darkness.

History laughs at both the victim and the aggressor.

The poem is in my hands, and can run stories through her hands.