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“The days have taught you not to trust happiness because it hurts when it deceives.”
― Mahmoud Darwish, A River Dies of Thirst: Journals

“Fame is the enemy of instinct and spontaneity, the difference between what is said and what ought to be said, and the transformation of one person into two”
― Mahmoud Darwish, A River Dies of Thirst: Journals

“She does not love you.
Your metaphors thrill her
you are her poet.
But that's all there's to it.

from “She Does Not Love You”
― Mahmoud Darwish, A River Dies of Thirst: Journals

“Life to the last drop
If someone said to me again: ‘Supposing you were to die tomorrow, what would you do?â€� I wouldn’t need any time to reply. If I felt drowsy, I would sleep. If I was thirsty, I would drink. If I was writing, I might like what I was writing and ignore the question. If I was having lunch, I would add a little mustard and pepper to the slice of grilled meat. If I was shaving, I might cut my earlobe. If I was kissing my girlfriend, I would devour her lips as if they were figs. If I was reading, I would skip a few pages. If I was peeling an onion, I would shed a few tears. If I was walking, I would continue walking at a slower pace. If I existed, as I do now, then I wouldn’t think about not existing. If I didn’t exist, then the question wouldn’t bother me. If I was listening to Mozart, I would already be close to the realms of the angels. If I was asleep, I would carry on sleeping and dream blissfully of gardenias. If I was laughing, I would cut my laughter by half out of respect for the information. What else could I do, even if I was braver than an idiot and stronger than Hercules?”
― Mahmoud Darwish, A River Dies of Thirst: Journals

“I melt at your glances and become music.”
― Mahmoud Darwish, A River Dies of Thirst: Journals

“I leave the other side of my life where it wants to stay, and follow the
remainder of my life in search of the other side of it.”
― Mahmoud Darwish, A River Dies of Thirst: Journals

“And we have the night ahead of us
to stroll in lilac-scented gardens. Everything there
is here. It is all ours. You are mine, I am yours
and the shadow, your shadow, laughs like an orange. The dream
did its job and, like a postman, hurried on
to someone else. So we have to be
worthy, this evening, of ourselves, and of a river
that runs along beside us, and that we flow into as it flows into us.”
― Mahmoud Darwish, A River Dies of Thirst: Journals

“I am here. Anything more than that is rumor and slander”
― Mahmoud Darwish, A River Dies of Thirst: Journals

“The mercy bullet

I envy horses: if they break a leg and feel humiliated because they can no longer charge back and forth in the wind, they are cured by a mercy bullet. So if something in me gets broken, physically or spiritually, I would do well to look for a proficient killer, even if he is one of my enemies. I will pay him a fee and the price of the bullet, kiss his hand and his revolver, and if I am able to write, extol him in a poem of rare beauty, for which he can choose the metre and rhyme.”
― Mahmoud Darwish, A River Dies of Thirst: Journals

“Don’t say that poetry, my friend, is beautiful

or powerful

for there is no powerful or beautiful poetry

There is poetry that strikes you, secretly

with the diseases of writing and schizophrenia, and you rave

and your self leaves you for another”
― Mahmoud Darwish, A River Dies of Thirst: Journals

“If we want to

We will become a people, if we want to, when we learn that we are not angels, and that evil is not the prerogative of others
We will become a people when we stop reciting a prayer of thanksgiving to the sacred nation every time a poor man finds something to eat for his dinner
We will become a people when we can sniff out the sultan’s gatekeeper and the sultan without a trial
We will become a people when a poet writes an erotic description of a dancer’s belly
We will become a people when we forget what the tribe tells us, when the individual recognizes the importance of small details
We will become a people when a writer can look up at the stars without saying: ‘Our country is loftier and more beautiful!�
We will become a people when the morality police protect a prostitute from being beaten up in the streets
We will become a people when the Palestinian only remembers his flag on the football pitch, at camel races, and on the day of the Nakba
We will become a people, if we want to, when the singer is allowed to chant a verse of Surat al-Rahman at a mixed wedding reception
We will become a people when we respect the right, and the wrong.”
― Mahmoud Darwish, A River Dies of Thirst: Journals

“Graveyards have the dignity of air, the authority of dust.”
― Mahmoud Darwish, A River Dies of Thirst: Journals

“I would yearn for nothing
no yesterday passing, no tomorrow to come
and my present neither advancing nor retreating
Nothing happening to me!
If only I were a stone � I said � Oh if only I were
some stone so that water would burnish me
green, yellow � I would be placed in a room
like a sculpture, or exercises in sculpture
or material for the eruption of the necessary
from the folly of the unnecessary
If only I were a stone
so that I could yearn for something!

â€� Mahmoud Darwish, “If only I were a stoneâ€� A River Dies of Thirst: Journals. (Archipelago; 1 Tra edition August 25, 2009)”
― Mahmoud Darwish, A River Dies of Thirst: Journals

“They want time to move fast so they can paint their nails a provocative red and wear high heels that crack walnuts and make people jump. He wants time to slow down so he can prolong the enjoyment of walking among them, of being next to this self-contained beauty.”
― Mahmoud Darwish, A River Dies of Thirst: Journals

“I taste the letters of your name one by one, like lyrical fruits. I do not add water to them, so as to preserve the taste of peaches and the thirst of my senses. I envy my imagination embracing you, silencing you, kissing you, caressing you, holding you tight and letting you go, bringing you near and pushing you away, lifting you up and putting you down, making you submit and submitting to you, and doing all the things I never do.”
― Mahmoud Darwish, A River Dies of Thirst: Journals

“We see them oiling their weapons to kill the gryphon they think is hiding in our hen coop. And we cannot help laughing.”
― Mahmoud Darwish, A River Dies of Thirst: Journals