I very much hope that when my wife reads my writings so she reads it as if she is a character and not the real one. Sometimes she takes it too personally.

Here I am, a Palestinian Arab who only knows how to write in Hebrew, stuck in central Illinois.

I always see my wife as the clever one, as the wise one in the family.

I'm not sure that I recovered, but I also know that I cannot afford going back yet. I see how much the kids are happier, I guess, here and I think that they might have a better future not hiding.

Christmas is relentless. It's around the clock. I sit with my little ones in front of the TV screen, and we watch movie after movie after movie.

Sometimes I wonder if there is any hope left for an Israeli-Palestinian discourse that is built on equality and liberty rather than a fruitless discourse of master and servant.

Israeli independence - what we Arabs call al-Naqba, 'The Catastrophe' - it created Palestinian identity more than anything else.

Thanksgiving is the only day of the year when most of the stores here are closed during the day and reopen after midnight. Even restaurants shut down for the holiday, except for the fast-food chains.

I'm always sad when Dad doesn't like my columns. He waits for them every week and usually likes them, in which case he doesn't say a word - it's only if he's critical that he bothers to call.

Somehow, since I became a family, every minute in which I am alone and not listening to two kids screaming in stereo feels like a vacation.

If you cannot lie, tell a different truth.

There would be nothing to frighten you if you refused to be afraid.

If a man can remember what he worried about last week he has a very good memory.

There's so many things that we could do.

The highest honor in the church is not government but service.

Now unto him who is able to strengthen you … be glory.

I like surprises. I like mystery. I’m not the kind of person who goes to the writer’s room and goes, I need to know the whole story so I can prepare. No, don’t tell me anything!

When you dance on your own there is something so magical and so special.

I didn't have a sweet tooth, but I liked butter, and I liked sauces, and I liked wine and curry and cheeses.

So now I have confessed that he is thine, And I my self am mortgaged to thy will, My self I'll forfeit, so that other mine, Thou wilt restore to be my comfort still.