The reason a poet is a poet is to write poems, not to advertise himself as a poet. Yehuda Amichai More Quotes by Yehuda Amichai More Quotes From Yehuda Amichai Jerusalem is a port city on the shore of eternity. Yehuda Amichai jerusalem israel cities From the place where we are right, flowers will not grow in the spring. Yehuda Amichai grows flower spring The soul inside me is the last foreign language I'm learning. Yehuda Amichai lasts language soul Love is like a reservoir of kindness and pleasure, like silos and pools during a siege. Yehuda Amichai siege kindness love-is And as we stray further from love, we multiply the words. Had we remained together we could have become a silence. Yehuda Amichai silence together love I’ve never been in those places where I’ve never been and never will be, I have no share in the infinity of light-years and dark-years, but the darkness is mine, and the light, and my time is my own. Yehuda Amichai light dark years My poems are political in the deeper sense of the word. Political means to live in your time, to be a man of your time. Yehuda Amichai political men mean Behind all this, some great happiness is hiding. Yehuda Amichai hiding behinds happiness There are two languages: one as things seem to us and the other of knowledge. Yehuda Amichai language seems two Every intelligent person, whether hes an artist or not - a mathematician, a doctor, a scientist - possesses a poetic way of seeing and describing the world. Yehuda Amichai doctors intelligent artist Here (Jerusalem), tears do not weaken the eyes, they only polish and shine the hardness of faces like stone. Yehuda Amichai tears shining eye I've often said that all poetry is political. This is because real poems deal with a human response to reality and politics is part of reality, history in the making. Even if a poet writes about sitting in a glass house drinking tea, it reflects politics. Yehuda Amichai real drinking writing I was a very religious child - I went to synagogue at least once, sometimes twice, a day. And I remember my religiousness as good - I think religion is good for children, especially educated children, because it allows for imagination, a whole imaginative world apart from the practical world. Yehuda Amichai religious children thinking I think the end is endless. It's either a big black hole or a big white light or both together. But it's totally meaningless, because even if someone would explain it, I wouldn't understand it. Yehuda Amichai light white thinking It was not an adventure; it was my life. Yehuda Amichai adventure Knowledge of peace passes from country to country, like children's games, which are so much alike, everywhere. Yehuda Amichai games country children And I said to myself: That's true, hope needs to be like barbed wire to keep out despair, hope must be a mine field. Yehuda Amichai wire despair needs What are you going to do now? You'll collect loves like stamps. You've got doubles and no one will trade with you. And you've got damaged ones. Yehuda Amichai stamps trade A flock of sheep near the airport or a high voltage generator beside the orchard: these combinations open up my life like a wound, but they also heal it. That's why my feelings always come in twos. Yehuda Amichai airports feelings sheep I wanted to be calm, like a mound with all its cities destroyed, and tranquil, like a full cemetery. Yehuda Amichai calm cemetery cities
