“Poetry slows us down, cherishes small details.”

— Naomi Shihab Nye, 19 Varieties of Gazelle, 2002

About Naomi Shihab Nye

Born 1952

Palestinian-American poet and author.

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

“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.”

“If music be the food of love, play on.”

“Beauty is the mark God sets upon virtue.”

“If eyes were made for seeing, then beauty is its own excuse for being.”

“The chief forms of beauty are order and symmetry and definiteness.”

“Homer has taught all other poets the art of telling lies skillfully.”

“Life imitates art far more than art imitates Life.”