141 Quotes by Mahmoud Darwish

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

The image of love reveals itself there; in a profoundly present absence.

Had I known you, I would have possessed you, and had you known me, you would have possessed me. But then you and I would not be.

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.

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

Perhaps death is a metaphor to remind us of a secret of life we failed to notice.

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.

When the image is identical to reality, the imagination is compelled to be neutral. Therefore let the image of the object lie to the object so we can see what lies beyond the object, and in the light of that vision see what saves us from nothingness.

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