Naomi Shihab Nye · 176 pages
Rating: (396 votes)
“I am looking for the human who admits his flaws
Who shocks the adversary
By being kinder not stronger
What would that be like?
We don't even know”
“I have slept so many times you might think I would really be awake by now”
“Maybe we should just wander around other countries carrying books.”
“I’m still the kid dreaming of the lives she’ll never have but guess what? Maybe she doesn’t want them.”
“Only in words on a page can it still be yesterday.”
“I was a fool, and I will always be a fool, and there will never, never, be a last day of school.”
“So ask yourself, you swirling tornado of a human being, in a world of disoriented honeybees, do you want to look locked out the minute you sit down?”
“He’s mourning his son, number 3000 American dead in Iraq, but as far as he can feel, the worst one.”
“And didn’t we pledge, pledge, pledge, palms on our chests, every day we lived, pledge to the one nation, the freedom we believed in, didn’t we? Fat lot of good.”
“It is difficult to predict what our finest moments will be, but we know when they happen.”
“There are people we have never seen who are busy thinking up things we should be worried about.”
“Almost all crime depends on the acquiescence of the victim. If the victim refuses his assigned role, the criminal is placed at a disadvantage - one so severe, that it usually takes an understanding and compassionate judge to set things right. I had broken the rules. I had fought back.”
“Genius has as many components as the mind itself.”
“Not hear it? --yes, I hear it, and have heard it. Long --long --long --many minutes, many hours, many days, have I heard it --yet I dared not --oh, pity me, miserable wretch that I am! --I dared not --I dared not speak! We have put her living in the tomb!”
“Man's feet are the measure for distance, his hands are the measure for ownership, his body is the measure for all that is lovable and desirable and strong.”
“I hate saying goodbye to you.”
I nuzzled my face into his chest and then tipped my head back and looked up at him. “Just promise me once we get out of here, we’ll never say goodbye again.”
“I promise.”
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