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…

— 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…

— Tahar Ben Jelloun

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

— 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

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

— 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

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

— 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…

— Tahar Ben Jelloun

“Man is more noble dead than alive, because in returning to the earth he becomes earth, and nothing is nobler than the…

— Tahar ben Jelloun

“Our first love is always our last.”

— 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…

— Tahar Ben Jelloun

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

— Tahar Ben Jelloun

Beauty is first and foremost an emotion.

— 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…

— 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…

— 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…

— Tahar Ben Jelloun

I am a Moroccan writer of French expression.

— 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…

— Tahar Ben Jelloun

Poetry is a form of mathematics, a highly rigorous relationship with words.

— Tahar Ben Jelloun

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

— 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.…

— 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…

— Tahar Ben Jelloun

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

— Tahar Ben Jelloun