An individual voice can be heard in a choir that otherwise sings in unison. This is something that is not excused.
- Tahar Ben Jelloun Quote

At 21, I discovered repression and injustice. The army would shoot students with real bullets.
- Tahar Ben Jelloun Quote

Be vigilant, for nothing one achieves lasts forever.
- Tahar Ben Jelloun Quote

Egypt has suffered more ordeals than the other countries to get where it is.
- Tahar Ben Jelloun Quote

Emigration is no longer a solution; it's a defeat. People are risking death, drowning every day, but they're knocking on doors that are not open.
- Tahar Ben Jelloun Quote

I am a guest of the French language. My poems in French are born of my interaction with the French language, which is not the same as that of a French poet.
- Tahar Ben Jelloun Quote

I am a Moroccan writer of French expression.
- Tahar Ben Jelloun Quote

I belong to a specific category of writers, those who speak and write in a language different from that of their parents.
- Tahar Ben Jelloun Quote

I came to poetry through the urgent need to denounce injustice, exploitation, humiliation. I know that's not enough to change the world. But to remain silent would have been a kind of intolerable complicity.
- Tahar Ben Jelloun Quote

I do not use the language of my people. I can take liberties with certain themes which the Arabic language would not allow me to take.
- Tahar Ben Jelloun Quote

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.
- Tahar Ben Jelloun Quote

I liked Sartre's views but not his writing.
- Tahar Ben Jelloun Quote

I read a poem every night, as others read a prayer.
- Tahar Ben Jelloun Quote

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

In Morocco, it's possible to see the Atlantic and the Mediterranean at the same time.
- Tahar Ben Jelloun Quote

In the '70s I was in exile; every time I went back I wondered if they'd take my passport away.
- Tahar Ben Jelloun Quote

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.
- Tahar Ben Jelloun Quote

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.
- Tahar Ben Jelloun Quote

My characters are driven by a passionate desire for justice. They are rebellious and incorruptible.
- Tahar Ben Jelloun Quote

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

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.
- Tahar Ben Jelloun Quote

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.
- Tahar Ben Jelloun Quote

Poetry is a form of mathematics, a highly rigorous relationship with words.
- Tahar Ben Jelloun Quote

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.
- Tahar Ben Jelloun Quote

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

The intellectual, the man of thought, doubt and analysis, should give the best of himself.
- Tahar Ben Jelloun Quote

The mistake we make is to attribute to religions the errors and fanaticism of human beings.
- Tahar Ben Jelloun Quote

The world does not look to us in the Arab world out of a healthy desire for knowledge.
- Tahar Ben Jelloun Quote

There are very few great poets in the world.
- Tahar Ben Jelloun Quote

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

To lead a country, you must periodically hold a national consultation in which people representing different programmes can make a bid for power.
- Tahar Ben Jelloun Quote

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.
- Tahar Ben Jelloun Quote

We must have our say, not through violence, aggression or fear. We must speak out calmly and forcefully. We shall only be able to enter the new world era if we agree to engage in dialogue with the other side.
- Tahar Ben Jelloun Quote

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.
- Tahar Ben Jelloun Quote