Top 35 Tahar Ben Jelloun Quotes

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

In the ’70s I was in exile; every time I went back I wondered if they’d take my passport away.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

I love life in spite of all that mars it. I love friendship, jokes and laughter.

I’d thought sexuality was instinctive or natural, but it’s profoundly linked to inner security and cultural context.

There is a gulf between the Arab peoples and Arab intellectuals.

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

It is through accepting other people in our own countries that we shall come to respect our neighbours and be respected in our turn.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.

What have we achieved since the end of the Second World War? We have allowed petty, bourgeois regimes in which everything is average, mediocre.

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

Beauty is first and foremost an emotion.

There are very few great poets in the world.

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

At 21, I discovered repression and injustice. The army would shoot students with real bullets.

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.

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.

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

Egypt has suffered more ordeals than the other countries to get where it is.

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