Ben Jelloun Quotes & Sayings

You see, people like Ben Jelloun have the life of a writer in exile, and this gives them a certain - here Farouq paused, struggling to find the right word - it gives them a certain poeticity, can I say this, in the eyes of the West. To be a writer in exile is a great thing. But what is exile now, when everyone goes and comes freely? — Teju Cole

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

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. — Tahar Ben Jelloun

I have at least the whole of my life to answer a question: Who am I? And who is the other? A gust of wind at dawn? A motionless landscape? A trembling leaf? A coil of white smoke above a mountain? I write all these words and I hear the wind, not outside, but inside my head. A strong wind, it rattles the shutters through which I enter the dream. — Tahar Ben Jelloun

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

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

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

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

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

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

Our steps invent the path as we proceed; behind us they leave no trace, only the void. So we shall always look ahead and trust our feet. They will take us as far as our minds will go ...
Tahar ben Jelloun — Tahar Ben Jelloun

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

There is an important erotic element in A Thousand and One Nights, which is one of the keys to understanding the Orient. — Tahar Ben Jelloun

For a long time I searched for the black stone that cleanses the soul of death. — Tahar Ben Jelloun

A novel related in a dungeon, in the presence of death, cannot have the same meaning, the same consequences, as it would when read on the beach or in a meadow, in the shade of cherry trees. — Tahar Ben Jelloun

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

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

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

I am glad to have found a readership, but one can't write only what is likely to sell. A writer is not a shopkeeper. A writer creates an imaginary world that he transmits to others. — Tahar Ben Jelloun

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

Most of those who died did not die of hunger but of hatred. Feeling hatred diminishes you. It eats at your from within and attacks the immune system. When you have hatred inside you, it always crushes you in the end. — Tahar Ben Jelloun

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

For me, poetry is a situation - a state of being, a way of facing life and facing history. — Tahar Ben Jelloun

Did my father talk to me? It's true, he didn't say a lot to me, but I knew what had to be done. No need for big speeches. He taught me the fundamentals of our religion: My son, Islam is simple: you are alone responsible for yourself before God, so if you are good, you will find goodness in the afterlife, and if you are bad, you'll find that instead. There's no mystery: everything depends on how you treat people, especially the weak, the poor, so Islam, that means you pray, you address the Creator and don't do evil around you, don't lie, don't steal, don't betray your wife or your country, don't kill- but do I really need to remind you of this? — 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

Our first love is always our last. — Tahar Ben Jelloun

I liked Sartre's views but not his writing. — 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

Religion has to stay in the heart, not in politics. It is private. — Tahar Ben Jelloun

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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. — 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

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

But bad manners or vulgar gestures can sometimes have a touch of poetry about them, just enough not to arouse one's indignation. — Tahar Ben Jelloun

Whenever you're struck by misfortune, either through an illness or an accident, the people around you suddenly change. There are those who scurry off the sinking ship, like rats, those who wait to see how the situation develops before making their next move, and finally those who remain loyal to their feelings and whose behavior doesn't change. Those friends are both rare and precious. He — Tahar Ben Jelloun

But you'll see, you can feel time on the wind it whips up as it passes. We don't worry about time or the wind. Nothing can touch us any more. As long as people remember us, we are here. Anyway, it's the wind that tells us, lets us know about the thigs we've left behind. — 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

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

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

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

Don't worry, life is good despite everything! — Tahar Ben Jelloun

I am glad I have found a readership, but one can't write only what is likely to sell. A writer is not a shopkeeper. — Tahar Ben Jelloun

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

I am a Moroccan writer of French expression. — 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

Beauty is first and foremost an emotion. — Tahar Ben Jelloun

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

There is a gulf between the Arab peoples and Arab intellectuals. — Tahar Ben Jelloun

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

Pain, too, comes from depths that cannot be revealed. We do not know whether those depths are in ourselves or elsewhere, in a graveyard, in a scarcely dug grave, only recently inhabited by withered flesh. This truth, which is banal enough, unravels time and the face, holds up a mirror to me in which I cannot see myself without being overcome by a profound sadness that undermines one's whole being. The mirror has become the route through which my body reaches that state, in which it is crushed into the ground, digs a temporary grave, and allows itself to be drawn by the living roots that swarm beneath the stones. It is flattened beneath the weight of that immense sadness which few people have the privilege of knowing. So I avoid mirrors. — Tahar Ben Jelloun

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

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

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