Quotes & Sayings About Arabic Eyes

Eyes closed, she let her pain float away with the prayers, higher and higher, around the mosque's minarets, and up to the sky. She thought about the old Arabic saying that a woman has only two exits. One exit leads from my father's house to my husband's. The other leads from my husband's house to my grave. I'm not ready for the second exit yet. — Christian F. Burton

You think you're going to impress an American jury with [your] words? In the eyes of the Americans, you're doomed. Just looking at you in an orange suit, chains, and being Muslim and Arabic is enough to convict you. — Mohamedou Ould Slahi

I spend my night writing you love letters;The eraser
Then spend my day
Erasing each, word by word.
Your eyes are my golden compasses;
They point me toward the sea of separation!

(translated from the Arabic by Sivar Qazaz) — Ghada Samman

Closing my eyes and holding still. It's the end if I get mad or scream. It's close to a prayer. Hate is not for humans. Judgment lies with God. That's what I learned from my Arabic brothers and sisters. — Kenji Goto

Thank you,' I answered, unsure of the proper American response to her gracious enthusiasm. In the Arab world, gratitude is a language unto itself. "May Allah bless the hands that give me this gift"; "Beauty is in the eyes that find me pretty"; "May Allah never deny your prayer"; and so on, an infinite string of prayerful appreciation. Coming from such a culture, I have always found a mere "thank you" an insufficient expression that makes my voice sound miserly and ungrateful." (169). — Susan Abulhawa

To Alef, the letter
that begins the alphabets
of both Arabic and Hebrew-
two Semitic languages,
sisters for centuries.
May we find the language
that takes us
to the only home there is -
one another's hearts.
...
Alef knows
That a thread
Of a story
Stitches together
A wound. — Ibtisam Barakat

Dad says that everyone invented baklava." It occurs to me now to wonder what that means. Aunt Aya rolls her eyes.
"Your father? He is the worst of the worst. He thinks he cooks and eats Arabic food but these walnuts were not grown from Jordanian earth and this butter was not made from Jordanian lambs. He is eating the shadow of a memory. He cooks to remember but the more he eats, the more he forgets. — Diana Abu-Jaber