Nizar Qabbani

Days will pass, and you’ll abandon things you were addicted to, and leave someone, and cancel a dream, and finally, accept a reality.

My lover asks me: “What is the difference between me and the sky?” The difference, my love, Is that when you laugh, I forget about the sky

In the summer I stretch out on the shore And think of you. Had I told the sea What I felt for you, It would have left its shores, Its shells, Its fish, And followed me.

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.

Life doesn't stop after losing someone, but it goes on without them differently.

If you want to kill somebody, conquer his heart, Then leave slowly and leave them between death and madness.

And all the countries seemed the same, _x000D_ That I don't see myself there, And I don't see myself here.

Love in the Arab world is like a prisoner, and I want to set (it) free. I want to free the Arab soul, sense and body with my poetry. The relationships between men and women in our society are not healthy.

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

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?

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

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.