Naomi Shihab Nye Quotes - Page 2

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• Energy is everything. Rubbing happy and sad together creates energy.

  Naomi Shihab Nye

  Together, Energy

  27 Copy quote

• 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

  5 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.

  6 Copy quote

• 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

• You know, those of us who leave our homes in the morning and expect to find them there when we go back - it's hard for us to understand what the experience of a refugee might be like.

  Naomi Shihab Nye

  Morning, Home, Might

  29 Copy quote

• 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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• Facts interest me less than the trailing smoke of stories.

  Naomi Shihab Nye

  Stories, Facts, Interest

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

  8 Copy quote

• 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 al out. This day will never, no matter how long you live, happen again. It is exquisitely singular. It will never again be exactly repeated.

  Naomi Shihab Nye

  Thinking, Long, Matter

  10 Copy quote

• 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

  17 Copy quote

• 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.

  6 Copy quote

• 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

  4 Copy quote

• Because sometimes I live in a hurricane of words and not one of them can save me.

  Naomi Shihab Nye

  Hurricanes, Sometimes, Save Me

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

  7 Copy quote

• 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

  8 Copy quote

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

  Naomi Shihab Nye

  Determined, Conversation, Terrible

  12 Copy quote

• 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

  7 Copy quote

• Maybe when your mother died young, you became instantly old.

  Naomi Shihab Nye

  Mother, Young, Mother Died

  Naomi Shihab Nye (2011). “There Is No Long Distance Now: Very Short Stories”, p.6, Harper Collins

  4 Copy quote

• 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

  12 Copy quote

• We start out as little bits of disconnected dust.

  Naomi Shihab Nye

  Dust, Littles, Disconnected

  4 Copy quote

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

  Naomi Shihab Nye

  Lap, Trouble, Storyteller

  4 Copy quote

• 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

  5 Copy quote

• 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

  16 Copy quote

• I support all people on earth
  who have bodies like and unlike my body,
  skins and moles and old scars,
  secret and public hair,
  crooked toes. I support
  those who have done nothing large.

  Naomi Shihab Nye

  Compassion, Hair, People

  Naomi Shihab Nye (1994). “Red Suitcase: Poems”, p.100, BOA Editions, Ltd.

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• A boy told me if he roller-skated fast enough his loneliness couldn't catch up to him, the best reason I ever heard for trying to be a champion. What I wonder tonight pedaling hard down King William Street is if it translates to bicycles. A victory! To leave your loneliness panting behind you on some street corner while you float free into a cloud of sudden azaleas, pink petals that have never felt loneliness, no matter how slowly they fell.

  Naomi Shihab Nye

  Kings, Loneliness, Boys

  Naomi Shihab Nye (1998). “Fuel: Poems”, p.81, BOA Editions, Ltd.

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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

  11 Copy quote

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