"Every Arab city is my mother, Damascus, Beirut, Cairo, Baghdad, Khartoum, Casablanca, Benghazi, Tunis, Amman, Riyadh, Kuwait, Algiers, Abu Dhabi, and their sisters: These are my family tree. All of these cities brought me forth from their wombs, cave me to suck from their breasts. And filled my pockets with grapes, figs and plums. All of them shook their date palms for me so that I could eat. Opened their skies for me like a blue notebook so that I could write. For this reason, I do not enter an Arab city without it calling me, "My son." I do not knock on the gate of an Arab city without finding my childhood bed waiting for me. No Arab city bleeds without my bleeding with it."