Laila Halaby > Quotes

“...As with many American conversations, the words he spoke had not conveyed what he had intended by them. He could never decide if it was his English, his actual use of language, or if it was because people didn't really listen and instead put into the words they heard the words they expected to hear.”
― Laila Halaby

“my rage quiets
throughout the sweet morning
filled with giggles”
― Laila Halaby, my name on his tongue: poems

“beautiful fields
are still beautiful
only now they're littered
with shrapnel and death,
the kind that makes people,
see crooked
breathe rage
swear revenge”
― Laila Halaby, my name on his tongue: poems

“being
published
did not make me a writer
eating zaatar
did not make me an Arab
getting married and having children
did not make me a woman

I have been
all of those things
the whole time I've been sitting here
at the back of the stinky city bus
(by choice, in spite of the fumes)

back here
you get to see

everything”
― Laila Halaby, my name on his tongue: poems

“let your voice rise above the trees
so that my name will reach the blue above”
― Laila Halaby, my name on his tongue: poems