Naomi Shihab Nye Quotes - Page 2

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• I have always loved the gaps, the spaces between things, as much as the things. I love staring, pondering, mulling, puttering. I love the times when someone or something is late-there's that rich possibility of noticing more, in the meantimePoetry calls us to pause. There is so much we overlook, while the abundance around us continues to shimmer, on its own.

  Naomi Shihab Nye

  Space, Things I Love, Gaps

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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.

  Naomi Shihab Nye

  Jobs, Believe, Writing

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• During the Gulf War, I remember two little third grade girls saying to me - after I read them some poems by writers in Iraq - 'You know, we never thought about there being children in Iraq before.' And I thought, 'Well those poems did their job, because now they'll think about everything a little bit differently.'

  Naomi Shihab Nye

  Girl, Jobs, Children

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• I'm like the weather, never really can predict when this rain cloud's gonna burst; when it's the high or it's the low, when you might need a light jacket. Sometimes I'm the slush that sticks to the bottom of your work pants, but I can easily be the melting snowflakes clinging to your long lashes. I know that some people like: sunny and seventy-five, sunny and seventy-five, sunny and seventy-five, but you take me as I am and never forget to pack an umbrella.

  Naomi Shihab Nye

  Rain, Clouds, Light

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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!

  Naomi Shihab Nye

  Book, Reading, Responsibility

  Interview with Rachel Barenblat, www.pifmagazine.com. August 1999.

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• Since there is no place large enough
  to contain so much happiness,
  you shrug, you raise your hands, and it flows out of you
  into everything you touch. You are not responsible.
  You take no credit, as the night sky takes no credit
  for the moon, but continues to hold it, and share it,
  and in that way, be known.

  Naomi Shihab Nye

  Moon, Night, Hands

  Naomi Shihab Nye, “So Much Happiness”

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• 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

  Kindness, Salt, Moments

  Naomi Shihab Nye (1995). “Words under the words: selected poems”, The Eighth Mountain Press

  27 Copy quote

• only kindness that raises its head from the crowd of the world to say it is I you have been looking for, and then goes with you everywhere like a shadow or a friend.

  Naomi Shihab Nye

  Kindness, Shadow, World

  Naomi Shihab Nye (1995). “Words under the words: selected poems”, The Eighth Mountain Press

  26 Copy quote

• I'm not interested in
  who suffered the most.
  I'm interested in
  people getting over it.

  Naomi Shihab Nye

  People, Oppression, Not Interested

  Naomi Shihab Nye (1994). “Red Suitcase: Poems”, p.21, BOA Editions, Ltd.

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• It was terrible when a single conversation with someone determined your whole future relationship.

  Naomi Shihab Nye

  Determined, Conversation, Terrible

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• We dropped our troubles into the lap of the storyteller, and they turned into someone else's.

  Naomi Shihab Nye

  Lap, Trouble, Storyteller

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• The hands are churches that worship the world.

  Naomi Shihab Nye

  Hands, Church, World

  Naomi Shihab Nye (1995). “Words under the words: selected poems”, The Eighth Mountain Press

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• I do think that all of us think in poems.

  Naomi Shihab Nye

  Thinking

  "Your Life Is a Poem". Interview with Krista Tippett, onbeing.org. July 28, 2016.

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• I say yes when I mean no
  and the wrinkle grows.

  Naomi Shihab Nye

  Mean, Wrinkles, Grows

  Naomi Shihab Nye (1995). “Words under the words: selected poems”, The Eighth Mountain Press

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• 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

  Children, Fighting, Thinking

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• maybe we try too hard to be remembered, waking to the glowing yellow disc in ignorance, swearing that today will be the day, today we will make something of our lives. what if we are so busy searching for worth that we miss the sapphire sky and cackling blackbird. what else is missing? maybe our steps are too straight and our paths too narrow and not overlapping. maybe when they overlap someone in another country lights a candle, a couple resolves their argument, a young man puts down his silver gun and walks away.

  Naomi Shihab Nye

  Country, Couple, Ignorance

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• My mother used to tell me when I went somewhere, "Please leave your foolishness at home." But how could I do that? It was stuck on me.

  Naomi Shihab Nye

  Mother, Home, Used

  Naomi Shihab Nye (2009). “I'll Ask You Three Times, Are You OK?: Tales of Driving and Being Driven”, p.8, Harper Collins

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• We start out as little bits of disconnected dust.

  Naomi Shihab Nye

  Dust, Littles, Disconnected

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• A poem is a cup of words open to the sky and wind in a bucket.

  Naomi Shihab Nye

  Wind, Sky, Buckets

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• Poetry [is] more necessary than ever as a fire to light our tongues.

  Naomi Shihab Nye

  Fire, Light, Tongue

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• When allowed to return to the class, your feelings of humility and lonesomeness will render you a much finer student and person.

  Naomi Shihab Nye

  Humility, Class, Feelings

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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.

  Naomi Shihab Nye

  Views, People, Groups

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• Getting over what you did to me is not why I get out of bed anymore.

  Naomi Shihab Nye

  Bed

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• you will never catch up. Walk around feeling like a leaf know you could tumble at any second. Then decide what to do with your time. --The Art of Disappearing

  Naomi Shihab Nye

  Art, Feelings, Disappear

  Naomi Shihab Nye (1995). “Words under the words: selected poems”, The Eighth Mountain Press

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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.

  Naomi Shihab Nye

  Book, Reading, Home

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