“Have I had two roads, I would have chosen their third.”

“I am from there. I am from here.I am not there and I am not here.I have two names, which meet and part,and I have two languages.I forget which of them I dream in.”

“The stars had only one task: they taught me how to read.They taught me I had a language in heavenand another language on earth.”

“May poetry and God's name have mercy on us!”

“... For me it is essential, essential for the poet to have a new toast, new songs.”

“The days have taught you not to trust happiness because it hurts when it deceives.”

“A poem exists only in the relation between poet and reader. And I'm in need of my readers, except that they never cease to write me as they would wish, turning their reading into another writing that almost rubs out my features. I don't know why my poetry has to be killed on the altar of misunderstanding or the fallacy of ready-made intent. I am not solely a citizen of Palestine, though I am proud of this affiliation and ready to sacrifice my life in defending the radiance of the Palestinian fact, but I also want to take up the history of my people and their struggle from an aesthetic angle that differs from the prevalent and repeatable meanings readily available from an unmediated political reading.”