Abdul Hadi Ghazal

“The poem is neither here nor there, and with a girl's breast
it can illuminate the nights.
With the glow of an apple it fills two bodies with light
and with a gardenia's breath it can revive a homeland!”
― Mahmoud Darwish, Unfortunately, It Was Paradise: Selected Poems

“We are all refugees from our childhoods. And so we turn, among other things, to stories. To write a story, to read a story, is to be a refugee from the state of refugees. Writers and readers seek a solution to the problem that time passes, that those who have gone are gone and those who will go, which is to say every one of us, will go. For there was a moment when anything was possible. And there will be a moment when nothing is possible. But in between we can create.”
― Mohsin Hamid, How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia

“Where can I free myself of the homeland in my body?”
― Mahmoud Darwish, Unfortunately, It Was Paradise: Selected Poems

“I prepare my portrait for my woman to hang on a wall when I die.
she says: Is there a wall to hang it on?
I say: We'll build a room for it. Where? In any house.”
― Mahmoud Darwish, Unfortunately, It Was Paradise: Selected Poems