Quotes By Tahar Ben Jelloun

The world does not look to us in the Arab world out of a healthy desire for knowledge.

I am a Moroccan writer of French expression.

An individual voice can be heard in a choir that otherwise sings in unison. This is something that is not excused.

New ideas should confront old ideas. We must refer to the example of Europe. People have fought to make Europe what it is today. Freedom is not something that is served up on a plate.

I have written about the dispossessed, immigrants, the condition of women who do not enjoy the same legal rights as men, the Palestinians who are deprived of their land and condemned to exile.

In Morocco, it's possible to see the Atlantic and the Mediterranean at the same time.

Poetry is a form of mathematics, a highly rigorous relationship with words.

I read a poem every night, as others read a prayer.

I liked Sartre's views but not his writing.

It is impossible to disregard such an important medium as television. We should know how to use it, learn to work in it and express new values in it.

A modern civilization is only possible when it is accepted that singular beings exist and express themselves freely.

The power of the word in Morocco belonged to men and to the authorities. No one asked the point of view of poor people or women.

I write about wounds, the eternal treasons of life. It's not very funny, but it's sincere. My commitment is to sincerity.

My characters are driven by a passionate desire for justice. They are rebellious and incorruptible.

My hope is that countries like Morocco will have investment to create work, so people don't have to leave.

We do not have many intellectuals who can speak out for us internationally. We have no writers who are recognized, respected and loved outside the Arab world.

Intellectuals try to keep going. But their situation is very difficult. Those who have had the courage to voice their opposition have often paid a very high price.

We have no Arab intellectuals of international stature because we live in a state of generalized mediocrity. We are suspended in the pit without touching the bottom.

People must insist on the right to say no, to be alone, to stand out from the herd. Creative artists can say all this in their own way and in their own field, by hard, rigorous work.

Real friendship, like real poetry, is extremely rare - and precious as a pearl.

Beauty is first and foremost an emotion.

This universe can very well be expressed in words and syllables which are not those of one's mother tongue.

Be vigilant, for nothing one achieves lasts forever.

The intellectual, the man of thought, doubt and analysis, should give the best of himself.

Religion has to stay in the heart, not in politics. It is private.

Poetry is not only a set of words which are chosen to relate to each other; it is something which goes much further than that to provide a glimpse of our vision of the world.

The mistake we make is to attribute to religions the errors and fanaticism of human beings.

I don't feel guilty about expressing myself in French; nor do I feel that I am continuing the work of the colonizers.

My sensibility steers me toward writers who are out on their own.

We must stop posing as victims of the West and behaving negatively towards the West. We must participate with the West on an equal footing in the reconstruction of the world.