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

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 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.

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.

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.

People make mistakes in life through believing too much, but they have a damned dull time if they believe too little.

Don't Let Yesterday's Pain Destroy Today's Joy.

It's nonsense to say that it's not in the bill. The reality is that the bill they will have passed to the Senate will have this language in it.

Only barbarians are not curious about where they come from, how they came to be where they are, where they appear to be going, whether they wish to go there, and if so, why, and if not, why not.

Technological things, that Germans and Japanese would get real excited about.

Rags, wretchedness, poverty and dirt, those signs and symbols that indicate the presence of [Muslim] rule more surely than the crescent-flag itself, abound.

As long as there's Big Momma, we're going to bring you comedy.

A lot of people are suffering in America.

It was like she was MADE of cake, light and pretty and decorated on the outside-with her sweet laugh and pink streak to her hair-but it was anyone's guess what was on the inside.

My theory has always been, that if we are to dream, the flatteries of hope are as cheap, and pleasanter, than the gloom of despair.