# Nizar Qabbani's most famous lines (with the poem)

From "The Fortune Teller" and "I Gave You the Choice" to "Footnotes to the Book of the Setback" and "Balqis": the lines by Nizar Qabbani everyone knows by heart, many of them sung by Abdel Halim Hafez, Kadim Al Sahir, Majida El Roumi and Najat Al Saghira, with the name of each poem.

- 5 votes · 11 items
- Nov 19, 2021 · matinee_old
- https://even.best/en/l/5183/nizar-qabbani-s-most-famous-lines-with-the-poem

## Top 11

1. **When he dances with me he whispers / words that are not like other words.** (1 · ▲1 ▼0) — Poem "Words", sung by Majida El Roumi.
2. **If a day goes by and I forget / to say to you: may your morning be sugar…** (1 · ▲1 ▼0) — Poem "Your Morning Is Sugar".
3. **My friends, I mourn to you the old language / and the old books.** (1 · ▲1 ▼0) — Poem "Footnotes to the Book of the Setback" (1967).
4. **I have given you the choice, so choose: / between dying on my chest / or on the pages of my poems.** (0 · ▲1 ▼1) — Poem "I Gave You the Choice, So Choose", sung by Kadim Al Sahir.
5. **She sat with fear in her eyes / gazing at my upturned cup. / She said: my son, do not grieve, / love is what is written for you.** (0 · ▲0 ▼0) — Poem "The Fortune Teller", sung by Abdel Halim Hafez in 1976.
6. **Does he think I am a toy in his hands? / I am not thinking of going back to him.** (0 · ▲0 ▼0) — Poem "Does He Think", sung by Najat Al Saghira.
7. **If you are my love, help me / to leave you; / if you are my doctor, help me / to be cured of you.** (0 · ▲0 ▼0) — Poem "Letter from Under the Water", sung by Abdel Halim Hafez.
8. **Give me more love, give me more, / O sweetest of my fits of madness.** (0 · ▲0 ▼0) — Poem "Increase My Love", sung by Kadim Al Sahir.
9. **For when I do not say "I love you", / it means I love you more.** (0 · ▲0 ▼0) — Poem "Your Morning Is Sugar".
10. **Since childhood I have been trying to draw a country / called, figuratively, the land of the Arabs.** (0 · ▲0 ▼0) — Poem "When Will They Announce the Death of the Arabs?" (1994).
11. **Thank you, thank you: / my beloved has been killed.** (0 · ▲0 ▼0) — Poem "Balqis" (1982), elegy for his wife, killed in the bombing of the Iraqi embassy in Beirut.

How is this ranking ordered? By people's votes: each ▲ adds a point and each ▼ takes one away. Anyone can vote and add what is missing.