120 Quotes by Naomi Shihab Nye

The tear is famous, briefly, to the cheek

only kindness that raises its headfrom the crowd of the world to sayit is I you have been looking for,and then goes with you everywherelike a shadow or a friend.

Poetry is everything that headline news is not.

Let me peer out at the worldthrough your lens. (Maybe I'll shudder,or gasp, or tilt my head in a question.)Let me see how your blueis my turquoise and my orangeis your gold. Suddenly binarystars, we have startlinggravity. Let's comparescintillation - let's sharestarlight.

My father was very disappointed by war and fighting. And he thought language could help us out of cycles of revenge and animosity. And so, as a journalist, he always found himself asking lots of questions and trying to gather information. He was always very clear to underscore the fact that Jewish people and Arab people were brother and sister.

I keep thinking, we teach children to use language to solve their disputes. We teach them not to hit and fight and bite. Then look what adults do!

You know, those of us who leave our homes in the morning and expect to find them there when we go back - it's hard for us to understand what the experience of a refugee might be like.

I think the job of writing and literature is to encourage each one of us to believe that we're living in a story.

I do think that all of us think in poems.