لو يذكرُ الزيتون غارسَهُ — Mahmoud Darwish

"Only culture is a guarantee of true peace."

"I encouraged the leadership in its time of weakness. Now that they are strong, Im allowed not to applaud. If a Palestinian state is established, I will be in the opposition. Thats my natural place."

"What is a homeland? It is a place that enables people to blossom, and not a place in which people serve the flag. In my poem, Cease-fire with the Mongolians, I say that I am going to make socks out of the flag. My lifes work is not on behalf of a flag."

"My poems do not deliver mere images and metaphors; but deliver landscapes, villages and fields, deliver a place. It makes that which is absent from geography present in its form, that is, able to reside in the poetic text, as if residing on his land. I don’t think that a poet is entitled to a greater happiness than that some people seek refuge in his lines of poetry, as if they were real houses. Indeed, in Arabic, there is a nice and unusual homonymy. Both the poetic verse and the house are said “bayt.” As if a man can reside there."

"I dont know what I want. Exile is so strong within me I may bring it to the land."

"We will become a people, if we want to, when we learn that we are not angels, and that evil is not the prerogative of others We will become a people when we stop reciting a prayer of thanksgiving to the sacred nation every time a poor man finds something to eat for his dinner We will become a people when we can sniff out the sultan’s gatekeeper and the sultan without a trial We will become a people when a poet writes an erotic description of a dancer’s belly We will become a people when we forget what the tribe tells us, when the individual recognises the importance of small details We will become a people when a writer can look up at the stars without saying: ‘Our country is loftier and more beautiful!’ We will become a people when the morality police protect a prostitute from being beaten up in the streets We will become a people when the Palestinian only remembers his flag on the football pitch, at camel races, and on the day of the Nakba We will become a people, if we want to, when the singer is allowed to chant a verse of Surat al-Rahman at a mixed wedding reception We will become a people when we respect the right, and the wrong."