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

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.

History laughs at both the victim and the aggressor.

If the Olive Trees knew the hands that planted them, Their Oil would become Tears.

When a writer declares that his first book is his best, that is bad. I progress successively from book to book.

I thought poetry could change everything, could change history and could humanize, and I think that the illusion is very necessary to push poets to be involved and to believe, but now I think that poetry changes only the poet.