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Naomi Shihab Nye
123 quotes
“I keep feeling so much gratitude for what we are given in our lives. All of us, by way of accident, by way of things we couldn't have selected ourselves. The worlds we are born into, the people we are related to, the landscapes we learn to love wherever we are.”
Naomi Shihab Nye (born 1952) first seen 2013 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Landscapes We Learn to Love”: 2013 NSK Neustadt Prize Lecture, printed in World Literature Today (January/February 2014)
“I hope you feel as I do that it wouldn't be that hard for the United States to have two friends. You know, to have only one good friend seems like the dark side of junior high school. Every time President Obama or any president says, "Israel, you are our enduring friend forever," I think, Okay that's fine, but couldn't you have two friends? What about, "Palestine, you are our friend too." Why not?”
Naomi Shihab Nye (born 1952) first seen 2013 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: 2013 NSK Neustadt Prize Lecture
“I have always thought about how stupid and boring violence seems in this world where we could just listen to more stories instead, right? We could ask people who trouble us, Could you tell me your story? Usually I have found when you ask someone to do that, you end up feeling closer to them, even if their story in no way mirrors yours. Find a better thing to do.”
Naomi Shihab Nye (born 1952) first seen 2013 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: 2013 NSK Neustadt Prize Lecture
“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.”
Naomi Shihab Nye (born 1952) first seen 2007 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: from the introduction to I'll Ask You Three Times, Are You OK?: Tales of Driving and Being Driven (2007)
“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 all out...”
Naomi Shihab Nye (born 1952) first seen 2007 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: from "Fabric Thrown over the City" in I'll Ask You Three Times, Are You OK?: Tales of Driving and Being Driven (2007)
“Here at home, the night belonged to the moon. Electricity was rationed, three hours each evening.”
Naomi Shihab Nye (born 1952) first seen 2006 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Local Hospitality", anthologized in Qissat: Short Stories by Palestinian Women edited by Jo Glanville (2006)
“Suheila commented that people argued most where there was least to talk about. If conversation was rich and subjects many, talk kept rolling fluidly, passing over rough spots like water over rocks. But once everything had been said, you started paddling backwards, flinging water and scraping your knees.”
Naomi Shihab Nye (born 1952) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Sometimes it works to fight logic with logic and craziness with craziness. This truth, however, cannot be depended on.”
Naomi Shihab Nye (born 1952) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I keep thinking, we teach children to use language to solve their disputes. We teach them not to hit and fight and bite. Then look what adults do!”
Naomi Shihab Nye (born 1952) first seen 2002 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: This Is Not Who We Are: Arab-Americans in a Post-9/11 World" (2002)
“As a direct line to human feeling, empathic experience, genuine language and detail, poetry is everything that headline news is not. It takes us inside situations, helps us imagine life from more than one perspective, honors imagery and metaphor — those great tools of thought — and deepens our confidence in a meaningful world.”
Naomi Shihab Nye (born 1952) first seen 2002 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: This Is Not Who We Are: Arab-Americans in a Post-9/11 World" (2002)
“The things that cause you friction are the things from which you might make art. Surely losing is one of the most endemic frictions of our journey.”
Naomi Shihab Nye (born 1952) first seen 1999 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: from introduction to What Have You Lost? (1999)
“I can't stop believing human beings everywhere hunger for deeper-than-headline news about one another. Poetry and art are some of the best ways this heartfelt "news" may be exchanged.”
Naomi Shihab Nye (born 1952) first seen 1998 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: from introduction to The Space Between Our Footsteps: Poems and Paintings from the Middle East (1998)
“This is what I want a book of poems and paintings to be-a surprising spring waking us from our daily sleep. A feast of little dishes. An unexpected walk along the rim of a majestic city. Ahlan Wa Sahlan-You are all welcome!”
Naomi Shihab Nye (born 1952) first seen 1998 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: from introduction to The Space Between Our Footsteps (1998)
“Tear gas canisters scattered in the fields by Israeli soldiers say, "Made in Pennsylvania."...I keep thinking of those signs in the United States at construction sites: YOUR TAX DOLLARS AT WORK HERE.”
Naomi Shihab Nye (born 1952) first seen 1996 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Never in a Hurry: Essays on People and Places (1996) p 226 ("Banned Poem")
“Think of it: two peoples, so closely related it's hard to tell them apart in the streets sometimes, claiming the same land. The end of the twentieth century.”
Naomi Shihab Nye (born 1952) first seen 1996 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Never in a Hurry: Essays on People and Places (1996) p 227 ("Banned Poem")
“the real heroes of race and culture would always be the people who stepped out of their own line to make a larger circle.”
Naomi Shihab Nye (born 1952) first seen 1995 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Widening the Circle" (1995) in Hungry Mind Review and also Race: An Anthology in the First Person
“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”
Naomi Shihab Nye (born 1952) first seen 1995 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Widening the Circle" (1995)
“In these days when "trade" is an amplified word, with the images of appliances and factories and skills flying back and forth across a border, I prefer to imagine cultures trading invisible riches.”
Naomi Shihab Nye (born 1952) first seen 1995 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: from the introduction to The Tree Is Older Than You Are: A Bilingual Gathering of Poems & Stories from Mexico (1995)
“I suggest that blood be bigger than what we're born with, that blood keep growing and growing as we live; otherwise how will we become true citizens of the world? For twenty years, working as a visiting writer in dozens of schools in my city and elsewhere. I have carried poems by writers of many cultures into classrooms, feeling the large family of voices linking human experience. We have no borders when we read.”
Naomi Shihab Nye (born 1952) first seen 1995 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: from the introduction to The Tree Is Older Than You Are (1995)
“what lovely, larger life becomes ours when we listen to one another”
Naomi Shihab Nye (born 1952) first seen 1992 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Introduction to This Same Sky: A Collection of Poems from Around the World (1992)
“I think of poets over the ages sending their voices out into the sky, leaving quiet, indelible trails.”
Naomi Shihab Nye (born 1952) first seen 1992 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Introduction to This Same Sky: A Collection of Poems from Around the World (1992)
“Whenever someone suggests "how much is lost in translation!" I want to say, "Perhaps but how much is gained!" A new world of readers, for one thing.”
Naomi Shihab Nye (born 1952) first seen 1992 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Introduction to This Same Sky: A Collection of Poems from Around the World (1992)
“On the board was written, "Poetry is a wide-open field." (p183)”
Naomi Shihab Nye (born 1952) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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)”
Naomi Shihab Nye (born 1952) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“[He] had a new theory. "Every day, focus on one thing. Think about it, examine it, look at it from different directions, change your mind. Make notes, ask questions, connect it to other things if you want but still... mostly one thing." (p209)”
Naomi Shihab Nye (born 1952) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“He felt it was his job not to forget where he came from. No one else in his class had ever seen Oman. No one else had held a falcon. Sometimes he felt as if Oman were living inside his own body, like blood, like bones, it seemed so close. (p211)”
Naomi Shihab Nye (born 1952) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“why, out of all the talk, do you remember that thing?”
Naomi Shihab Nye (born 1952) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Give up the annoying question, "How long does this have to be?" Just wonder-how long does it need to be? Then try to find out.”
Naomi Shihab Nye (born 1952) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Each thing gives us something else...The more any of us writes, the more our words will "come to us." If we trust in the words and their own mysterious relationships with one another, they will help us find things out.”
Naomi Shihab Nye (born 1952) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“We feel uplifted, exhilarated. Writing regularly can help us feel that way too. It slows and eases us, calms us down. Having a focal point is generative. Consider the spaciousness of the sky over the water, which we often forget about as we scurry through our days. I love what the poet Marvin Bell has suggested about writing-Read something, then write something. Read something else, then write something else. It's all connected, it's always been connected. Let one activity inform the other. Streams of language exchanging their powers.”
Naomi Shihab Nye (born 1952) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I do believe in overwriting, then cutting back. Physical fitness of the pen, page, and mind, interwoven. If you believe in revision you don't have to worry about perfection. Try not to worry about anything. It's impossible, of course, but try. I do think writing will help you live your life.”
Naomi Shihab Nye (born 1952) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Voices as guides, lines and stanzas as rooms, sometimes a single word the furniture on which to sit...each day we could open the door, and enter, and be found. These days I wonder-was life always strange-just strange in different ways? Does speaking some of the strangeness help us survive it, even if we can't solve or change it?”
Naomi Shihab Nye (born 1952) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Perhaps we have more voices in the air now-on TV, in our phones and computers and little saved videos-but are we able to hear them as well? Are these the voices we really need? Is our listening life-space deep enough? Can we tell ourselves when we need to walk away from chatter, turn it off entirely for half a day, or a full day, or a whole weekend, ease into a realm of something slower, but more tangible? Can we go outside and listen?”
Naomi Shihab Nye (born 1952) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“If you're an "I read before I go to sleep" sort of person, why not add a little more I-just-got-home-from-school-or-work reading? In the modern world, we deserve to wind down. Or perhaps some morning reading, to launch yourself? How long does it take to read a poem? Slowing to a more gracious pacing-trying not to hurry or feel overwhelmed-inch by inch-one thought at a time-can be a deeply helpful mantra. It's a gift we give our own minds.”
Naomi Shihab Nye (born 1952) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Discovering Something New Every Day was an Al-Amri family motto. Aref's father said people started playing this game the day they were born. (p7)”
Naomi Shihab Nye (born 1952) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Look at something ahead of you in the distance, then look at it when you get right up next to it, then turn around and look at it again when it is behind you." (p. 108)”
Naomi Shihab Nye (born 1952) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Right then he knew that moment was clearly written in his brain forever. (p170)”
Naomi Shihab Nye (born 1952) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Aref kept staring at the sleeping turtles on the beach as they climbed. Turtles weren't just cold-blooded reptiles. They were miracles. (p201)”
Naomi Shihab Nye (born 1952) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“When you drove out in the country, you felt closer to the earth than you felt in the city. You had better thoughts in the country. Your thoughts made falcon moves, dipping and rippling, swooping back into your brain to land. Maybe the motion of spinning wheels relaxed and enlivened them. Your thoughts weren't tied to one spot, and they weren't nervous, either. They were just open, and rolling. Maybe this was why some people decided to travel all of their lives, going to new places, not knowing what they would see next. (p211)”
Naomi Shihab Nye (born 1952) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Aref kept thinking that no matter what you say, there is something more inside that you can't say. You talk around it in a circle, like stirring water with a stick, when ripples swirl out from the center. (p. 259)”
Naomi Shihab Nye (born 1952) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Mystery remains part of many poems, as well it should, since it remains part of our lives no matter who or where we are.”
Naomi Shihab Nye (born 1952) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“There may be nothing more "basic" in education than gaining a sense of one's own voice. By acknowledging and shaping shared experience, we grow bigger. Poems help us see the world around us as rich material. And nothing is better than reading the work of our peers, as well as the work of older poets, to get us going in our particular terrain. A poem we love makes us want to write our own-hand to hand, map to map, contagious, delicious voices spinning us forward inside our cluttered, clattering lives.”
Naomi Shihab Nye (born 1952) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“In the midst of public jabber, high-velocity advertising, and shameless television, where is one true word? Where are three? Who will pause long enough to describe something truly, and clearly? Where is the burn of speech, the sweet rub of language, the spark that links us? Poetry, poetry! Rearranging right at the heart level, where standardized tests often don't go. I think our frenzied days are hungry for the kind of quietude poetry offers. It doesn't take long to weave it into our lives.”
Naomi Shihab Nye (born 1952) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“How should we use poetry?" people sometimes ask me. Read it! Share it with one another! Find poems that make you resonate. Different poems will do this for every person. We "use poetry" to restore us to feeling, revitalize our own speech, awaken empathy.”
Naomi Shihab Nye (born 1952) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Liyana Abboud had just tasted her first kiss when her parents announced they were leaving the country. (first line)”
Naomi Shihab Nye (born 1952) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Some days were long sentencesflowing into one another.”
Naomi Shihab Nye (born 1952) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Being little was a skin that fit. (p11)”
Naomi Shihab Nye (born 1952) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“She opened her mouth and a siren came out.”
Naomi Shihab Nye (born 1952) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Think of all the towns and cities we've never seen or imagined.”
Naomi Shihab Nye (born 1952) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Outside, the sky felt deep and dark as if a large soft blanket had been thrown over the hills and valleys. (p54)”
Naomi Shihab Nye (born 1952) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source