Quotes By Tahar Ben Jelloun
This universe can very well be expressed in words and syllables which are not those of one's mother tongue.
Tahar Ben Jelloun
The intellectual, the man of thought, doubt and analysis, should give the best of himself.
Tahar Ben Jelloun
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
The mistake we make is to attribute to religions the errors and fanaticism of human beings.
Tahar Ben Jelloun
I don't feel guilty about expressing myself in French; nor do I feel that I am continuing the work of the colonizers.
Tahar Ben Jelloun
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
It is through accepting other people in our own countries that we shall come to respect our neighbours and be respected in our turn.
Tahar Ben Jelloun
At 21, I discovered repression and injustice. The army would shoot students with real bullets.
Tahar Ben Jelloun
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
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
In the Arab world, there is no link between the cultural habits of peoples and the ways of thinking and creating of modern intellectuals. They are two separate worlds.
Tahar Ben Jelloun
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
I'd thought sexuality was instinctive or natural, but it's profoundly linked to inner security and cultural context.
Tahar Ben Jelloun
What have we achieved since the end of the Second World War? We have allowed petty, bourgeois regimes in which everything is average, mediocre.
Tahar Ben Jelloun
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
For me, poetry is a situation - a state of being, a way of facing life and facing history.
Tahar Ben Jelloun
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
In the '70s I was in exile; every time I went back I wondered if they'd take my passport away.
Tahar Ben Jelloun
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
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