Quotes by Mahmoud Darwish

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

— Mahmoud Darwish

Happiness

History laughs at both the victim and the aggressor.

— Mahmoud Darwish

Wisdom

Nothing, nothing justifies terrorism.

— Mahmoud Darwish

Wisdom

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.

— Mahmoud Darwish

Wisdom

Poetry and beauty are always making peace. When you read something beautiful you find coexistence; it breaks walls down.

— Mahmoud Darwish

Wisdom

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

— Mahmoud Darwish

Wisdom

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.

— Mahmoud Darwish

Life

Palestinian people are in love with life.

— Mahmoud Darwish

Love

I don't decide to represent anything except myself. But that self is full of collective memory.

— Mahmoud Darwish

Wisdom

The Palestinians are the only nation in the world that feels with certainty that today is better than what the days ahead will hold. Tomorrow always heralds a worse situation.

— Mahmoud Darwish

Life

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

— Mahmoud Darwish

Wisdom

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.

— Mahmoud Darwish

Wisdom

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

— Mahmoud Darwish

Wisdom

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.'

— Mahmoud Darwish

Wisdom

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

— Mahmoud Darwish

Wisdom

The Arabs are ready to accept a strong Israel with nuclear arms - all it has to do is open the gates of its fortress and make peace.

— Mahmoud Darwish

Wisdom

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

— Mahmoud Darwish

Wisdom

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

— Mahmoud Darwish

Wisdom

When I passed the age of 50, I learned how to control my emotions.

— Mahmoud Darwish

Education

Without hope we are lost.

— Mahmoud Darwish

Hope

I see poetry as spiritual medicine.

— Mahmoud Darwish

Wisdom

I am not a lover of Israel, of course. I have no reason to be. But I don't hate Jews.

— Mahmoud Darwish

Wisdom

I never wanted children; maybe I'm afraid of responsibility.

— Mahmoud Darwish

Wisdom

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

— Mahmoud Darwish

Wisdom