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 getti… - Naomi Shihab Nye

If a teacher told me to revise, I thought that meant my writing was a broken-down car that needed to go to the repair shop. I felt insulted. I didn't realize the teacher was saying, 'Make it shine. It's worth it.' Now I see revision as a beautiful word of hope. It's a new vision of something. It means you don't have to be perfect the first time. What a relief! (2014)

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)

"Poetry is like language soup, the taste of different flavors. Sometimes you just like the way a word sounds, pressed up against another word." She said poetry was contagious. In a good way. (p184)