Naomi Shihab Nye Quotes

Maybe peace was the size of a teacup. (p226)

Did people who committed acts of violence think their victims and their victims' relatives would just forget? Didn't people see? How violence went on and on like a terrible wheel? (p225)

For years the word floated in the air around their heads, yellow pollen, wispy secret dust of the ages passed on and on. Habibi, darling, or Habibti, feminine for my darling. (p204)

All our roots go deep down, even if they’re tangled (p199)

When we were born
we were blank pieces of paper;
nothing had been written yet.

what a pleasure just to say words that felt bigger than you were. (p174)

Some people let their countries become their religions and that didn't work either. (p174)

If you could be anyone,</br>would you choose to be yourself?

Some people carried anger around for years, in a secret box inside their bodies, and it grew tighter like a hardening knot. The problem with it getting tighter and smaller was that the people did, too, hiding it...But other people responded differently. They let their anger grow so large it ate them up--even their voices and laughter. And still they couldn't get rid of it. They forgot where it had come from. They tried to shake the anger loose, but no one liked them by now. (p89)

In Jerusalem so much old anger floated around, echoed from fading graffiti, seeped out of cracks. Sometimes it bumped into new anger in the streets. The air felt stacked with weeping and raging and praying to God by all the different names. (p89)

Maybe the hardest thing about moving overseas was being in a place where no one but your own family had any memory of you. It was like putting yourself back together with little pieces. (p80)

"I would like to go to school with the donkeys in the field. To stand all day in the free air with an open mouth. No bells ringing." (p75)

Outside, the sky felt deep and dark as if a large soft blanket had been thrown over the hills and valleys. (p54)

Think of all the towns and cities
we've never seen or imagined.

She opened her mouth
and a siren came out.