“Before you know kindness as the deepest thing inside, you must know sorrow as the other deepest thing.”

About Naomi Shihab Nye

Born 1952

Palestinian-American poet and author.

“It is really hard to be lonely very long in a world of words.”

“Writers, believers in words, could not give up words when the going got rough.”

“Why should it be any surprise that people find solace in the most intimate literary genre?”

“Where there is sorrow, there is holy ground.”

“Love is the only thing that we can carry with us when we go, and it makes the end so easy.”

“The path of sorrow, and that path alone, leads to the lands where sorrow is unknown.”

“It is too full o' the milk of human kindness.”

“Until he extends the circle of his compassion to all living things, man will not himself find peace.”

“A spring of love gushed from my heart, and I bless'd them unaware.”