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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.

Mahmoud Darwish

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Mahmoud Darwish
Age: 67 †
Born: 1941
Born: January 1
Died: 2008
Died: January 1
Author
Poet
Writer
Al-Birweh
M. Darwish
Mahmoud Darwish
Persons
Several
Prisons
Person
Prison
Homeland
However
Exile
Dies
Nightmare
Times
Elsewhere
Born
Transformed
Place
Occupation
May
Oppression
Exiles

More quotes by Mahmoud Darwish

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To be under occupation, to be under siege, is not a good inspiration for poetry.
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May poetry and God's name have mercy on us!
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The Palestinians are the only nation in the world that feels with certainty that today is better than what the days ahead will hold. Tomorrow always heralds a worse situation.
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I want to find a language that transforms language itself into steel for the spirit--a language to use against these sparkling insects, these jets.
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For the Arabs in Israel there is always a tension between nationality and identity.
Mahmoud Darwish
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The poem is in my hands, and can run stories through her hands.
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Exile is more than a geographical concept. You can be an exile in your homeland, in your own house, in a room.
Mahmoud Darwish
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Poetry is perhaps what teaches us to nurture the charming illusion: how to be reborn out of ourselves over and over again, and use words to construct a better world, a fictitious world that enables us to sign a pact for a permanent and comprehensive peace ... with life.
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Life defined only as the opposite of death is not life.
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One day, I will be a poet. Water will depend on my visions.
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I believe in the power of poetry, which gives me reasons to look ahead and identify a glint of light.
Mahmoud Darwish
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Nothing, nothing justifies terrorism.
Mahmoud Darwish
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And I tell myself, a moon will rise from my darkness.
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The metaphor for Palestine is stronger than the Palestine of reality.
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Against barbarity, poetry can resist only by confirming its attachment to human fragility like a blade of grass growing on a wall while armies march by.
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And what I don't understand I grasp it only when it's too late.
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I love women whose hidden desires make horses put an end to their lives at the threshold
Mahmoud Darwish
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I am not a lover of Israel, of course. I have no reason to be. But I don't hate Jews.
Mahmoud Darwish
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History laughs at both the victim and the aggressor.
Mahmoud Darwish
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My love, I fear the silence of your hands.
Mahmoud Darwish