Mahmoud Darwish Quotes

A lyric has to mean something to me, something that has happened to me.

There are stories I wanted to tell, and they are not defined by what I look like.

I think what happens with a lot of writing and art is that specificity ends up being relatable while universality becomes vague.

I thought that I wasn't an essayist because I just didn't see myself in a lot of the essays that were popular at the time. That's why I joined the poetry program in grad school.

If I write a fantastic story, I'm not writing something willful. On the contrary, I am writing something that stands for my feelings, or for my thoughts. So that, in a sense, a fantastic story is as real and perhaps more real than a mere circumstantial story. Because after all, circumstances come and go, and symbols remain.

I'm not a rock star writing poetry. I don't feel like a rock star and I don't know what one is, actually. I'm a goalie/poet or a hotel guest/poet or a father/poet.

When writing songs, especially if they're kinda semi-true to you, a lot of people hide behind whatever their idea of themselves is in the record, and every now and then, you might make a song that exposes something a little too much about you, and there's a part that doesn't want yourself to be exposed.

I really do pride myself on being able to help other people tell their stories and bring out the best in them. But I still, every song I'm writing, I still need to relate to it. I still need to find my true self in it, or else it'll feel dishonest. I mean, everything has a queer meaning as far as I'm concerned.

When it comes to the lyrics, I write about my own perception of things and use characters for that.

Flags are about proclaiming power... that visibility is key to our success and to our justice.

Most writers write from their own experiences. That is where the honesty and intensity of emotions come from.

I think it's easier for me to write from experience.

I feel like a lyricist is somebody that writes their own lyrics. Now songwriters and lyricists are two totally different things. You can't really be a lyricist if you didn't write your lyrics. There's no passion, there's nothing in it coming from you. It's somebody else's feelings and you just taking it and running with it.

Anyone who holds a pen these days thinks he or she is a poet.

I sit a lot with my lyrics - I don't write just to write or put a line in just to have one. Everything has to mean something to me.

My goal is, no matter what genre or story, I'll find a personal angle. It doesn't have to be autobiographical, or specifically Asian-American. It has to explore a burning question that I have.

Ramy' is based on a lot of personal things, and it's interesting to see how many people feel like it's their story. And how many people view it as this democratic thing that should represent them.

You make up a character, there's always gonna be parts of you that, like it or not, shine through.

You do your best to tell your own story, in the most specific way, and then you hope that that travels well, when it's done with heart and honesty.

It was through poetry I learned just to appreciate my own voice and to not think of my voice in terms of what it needs to be able to do, but what it can do.

No good book has ever been written that has in it symbols arrived at beforehand and stuck in. ... I tried to make a real old man, a real boy, a real sea and a real fish and real sharks. But if I made them good and true enough they would mean many things

My self-confidence can be measured out in teaspoons mixed into my poetry, and it still always tastes funny in my mouth.

Poetry isn't an activity, it's a way life is lived.

All high poetry is infinite; it is as the first acorn, which contained all oaks potentially.