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

History laughs at both the victim and the aggressor.

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.

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

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.

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.

And what I don't understand I grasp it only when it's too late.