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

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

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

Beauty is first and foremost an emotion.
Tahar Ben Jelloun

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

For me, poetry is a situation - a state of being, a way of facing life and facing history.
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 am a Moroccan writer of French expression.
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 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

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

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

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

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

I read a poem every night, as others read a prayer.
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'd thought sexuality was instinctive or natural, but it's profoundly linked to inner security and cultural context.
Tahar Ben Jelloun