The Blue Between Sky and Water Quotes

“Stories matter. We are composed of our stories. The human heart is made of the words we put in it. If someone ever says mean things to you, don’t let those words go into your heart, and be careful not to put mean words in other people’s hearts.”
― Susan Abulhawa, The Blue Between Sky and Water

“Words and stories washed ashore on that ancient way of the sea, and we made of them new songs. The sun came again, casting shadows that we peeled off the street to make of them new clothes.”
― Susan Abulhawa, The Blue Between Sky and Water

“At last everything was falling into place. Falling into love.”
― Susan Abulhawa, The Blue Between Sky and Water

“They uprooted indigenous songs, and planted lies in the ground to grow a new story.”
― Susan Abulhawa, The Blue Between Sky and Water

“It wasn’t long after that when I went into the quiet blue, that place without time, where I could soak up all the juices of life and let them run through me like a river.”
― Susan Abulhawa, The Blue Between Sky and Water

“    “But I have never before watched soldiers entice children like mice into a trap and murder them for sport.” —Chris Hedges”
― Susan Abulhawa, The Blue Between Sky and Water

“True darkness such as this was unattainable, for it was not merely the absence of light, but the presence of something unseeable filling every crevice of life. Not even the moon nor the brightest stars could light more than their own periphery in this blackness.”
― Susan Abulhawa, The Blue Between Sky and Water

“It's all about having a thread that links your years. To have another living person who just knows you. Someone who has seen you from childhood.”
― Susan Abulhawa, The Blue Between Sky and Water

“Life had collected her pieces and returned her to love’s source. There had been no coincidence.”
― Susan Abulhawa, The Blue Between Sky and Water

“Nzinga looked at him, unsure of herself, and in the shadows trampling his face was the weight of exile’s untouchable loneliness. Specks of age pushed into skin, Muslim Palestinian skin, consigned to peripheries and inferiorities. Displacement had warped his soul and the possibility of leaving his granddaughter alone there deposited in his eyes a wild fear.”
― Susan Abulhawa, The Blue Between Sky and Water

“The woman spoke of unspeakable horrors in her village, warning Nazmiyeh not to return. “I cannot bring myself to describe what they are doing to the women,” she said.”
― Susan Abulhawa, The Blue Between Sky and Water

“Without words, they walked away from their lives, away from these new conquering soldiers, who were drunk on an ancient virulence that mixed greed and power with God.”
― Susan Abulhawa, The Blue Between Sky and Water

“YOUR BULLET CANNOT TOUCH MY HUMANITY! IT CANNOT TOUCH MY SOUL! IT CANNOT RIP MY ROOTS FROM THE SOIL OF THIS LAND YOU COVET! WE WILL NOT LET YOU STEAL OUR LAND!”
― Susan Abulhawa, The Blue Between Sky and Water

“Israel’s bombing of Gaza altered the clock. As if time had been wounded, it now moved in a crawl, its daily passage impeded by the rubble that carpeted the terrain, its presence so thick that Hajje Nazmiyeh felt the sun dragging along the heavy weight of each hour. So much needed to be done, yet there was nothing to do. People gathered with nothing to say. Even when they spoke, their words were coated in a silence that stared into a chasm as they picked out and buried their dead. Even rage and calls for revenge seemed perfunctory. Tears made for a sort of refuge. A place to go to feel something in a wreckage that demanded numbness. For many, it was simply a waiting to die. Hope seemed vulgar in this hour, and the idea of death was so comforting and alluring that no one spoke, lest words do away with the seduction of a quiet ending.”
― Susan Abulhawa, The Blue Between Sky and Water

“In the abandon of that solitude, we could see how tiny we were, how small and defenseless our earth. And from that terrible dignity, we heard the susurrus of a long-ago old woman’s words: This land will rise again!”
― Susan Abulhawa, The Blue Between Sky and Water

“All us wounded women make a career of trying to put other people back together.”
― Susan Abulhawa, The Blue Between Sky and Water

“Someday, this will all end. There will be no more hours, no more soldiers, and no countries. The most anguished pains and blissful triumphs will fade to nothing. All that will matter is this love.”
― Susan Abulhawa, The Blue Between Sky and Water

“The warm mist of our lives condensed on the cold, dry surface of Nur, and she stopped at all up. That’s why she came, for the dew the family caught on her skin.”
― Susan Abulhawa, The Blue Between Sky and Water

“O find me
I’ll be in that blue
Between sky and water
Where all time is now
And we are the forever
Flowing like a river
O find me
Where it’s always day
And always night
There are no hours here
In the blue
Between sky and water
There are no countries here
No soldiers
No anguish or joy
Just blue between sky and water”
― Susan Abulhawa, The Blue Between Sky and Water

“My teta hung the sky every morning, like a sapphire sheet on a clothesline pirouetting in the breeze”
― Susan Abulhawa, The Blue Between Sky and Water

“The most anguished pains and blissful triumphs will fade to nothing. All that will matter is this love”
― Susan Abulhawa, The Blue Between Sky and Water

“War changed people. It created cowardice and bravery and produced legends.”
― Susan Abulhawa, The Blue Between Sky and Water

“She made her way to the village, walking through walls of fear. The air was heavy, almost unbeatable, and people moved in fitful motions, as if unsure that one leg should follow the other.”
― Susan Abulhawa, The Blue Between Sky and Water

“She smiled silently, watching ordinary love unpack itself, hoping its splash would land on her.”
― Susan Abulhawa, The Blue Between Sky and Water

“predicament crystallized with every passing year, the”
― Susan Abulhawa, The Blue Between Sky and Water

“el-Khan to the villagers. Overlooking Beit Daras were the remnants”
― Susan Abulhawa, The Blue Between Sky and Water