Quote

Before you know what kindness really is you must lose things, feel the future dissolve in a moment like salt in a weakened broth.

Naomi Shihab Nye

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Naomi Shihab Nye
Age: 72
Born: 1952
Born: March 12
Poet
Teacher
University Teacher
Writer
St. Louis
Missouri
Must
Salt
Feels
Kindness
Really
Lose
Things
Loses
Like
Future
Moment
Broth
Moments
Weakened
Feel
Dissolve

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I do think that all of us think in poems.
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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.
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Peter Conners stunning prose poems are packed with keen sensitivity, dreaminess, and wit. I love his time travels, the vibrant layering of image and detail. Try taking walks as you are reading this book- the dazzle of landscapes, inner and outer, feel replenished and rich. This is language and vision I want to come home to again and again.
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Today you will say things you can predict and other things you could never imagine this minute. Don't reject them, let them come through when they're ready, don't think you can plan it al out. This day will never, no matter how long you live, happen again. It is exquisitely singular. It will never again be exactly repeated.
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Where we live in the world is never one place. Our hearts, those dogged mirrors, keep flashing us moons before we are ready for them.
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Teaching and writing are separate, but serve/feed one another in so many ways. Writing travels the road inward, teaching, the road out - helping OTHERS move inward - it is an honor to be with others in the spirit of writing and encouragement.
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What did exclusivity ever have to offer but a distorted, unrealistic view of the world? People who stuck only to their own kind were scared people.
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We start out as little bits of disconnected dust.
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I want to be someone making music/with my coming.
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Later our dreams begin catching fire around the edges, they burn like paper, we wake with our hands full of ash.
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There is a place to stand where you can see so many lights you forget you are one of them.
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Read, Read, and then Read some more. Always Read. Find the voices that speak most to YOU. This is your pleasure and blessing, as well as responsibility!
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It is really hard to be lonely very long in a world of words. Even if you don't have friends somewhere, you still have language, and it will find you and wrap its little syllables around you and suddenly there will be a story to live in.
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Being good felt like a heavy coat, so I took it off.
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I am looking for the human who admits his flaws Who shocks the adversary By being kinder not stronger What would that be like? We don't even know
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I think the job of writing and literature is to encourage each one of us to believe that we're living in a story.
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I'm writing mostly to thank you for living you eighty years and to tell you I love you and think of you often.
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I'm not interested in who suffered the most. I'm interested in people getting over it.
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Because sometimes I live in a hurricane of words and not one of them can save me.
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The thousands small birds of January in their smooth soaring cloud finding the trees.
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