Home
Authors
Tags
App
Get QuoteDark Inspirational Quotes App
" 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
Habits
Creating
Thinking
Related Quotes:
" Be vigilant, for nothing one achieves lasts forever. "
Tahar Ben Jelloun
Lasts
Forever
Nothing
" I'd thought sexuality was instinctive or natural, but it's profoundly linked to inner security and cultural context. "
Tahar Ben Jelloun
Thought
Security
Sexuality
" 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
Stop
Must
Posing
" 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
Change
Change The World
Poetry
" 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
Myself
I Feel
I Am
" Religion has to stay in the heart, not in politics. It is private. "
Tahar Ben Jelloun
Politics
Stay
Religion
" I liked Sartre's views but not his writing. "
Tahar Ben Jelloun
Sartre
His
Writing
" There is a gulf between the Arab peoples and Arab intellectuals. "
Tahar Ben Jelloun
Arab
Gulf
Between
" There are very few great poets in the world. "
Tahar Ben Jelloun
World
Great
Few
" 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
Women
Enjoy
Immigrants
" 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 Can
Use
Take
" My characters are driven by a passionate desire for justice. They are rebellious and incorruptible. "
Tahar Ben Jelloun
Passionate
Driven
Justice
" 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
Language
Parents
Different
" 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
Live
Because
Mediocrity
" 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
Chosen
World
Vision
" Real friendship, like real poetry, is extremely rare - and precious as a pearl. "
Tahar Ben Jelloun
Friendship
Real
Like
" 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
People
Today
Freedom
" 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
Commitment
Funny
Life
" An individual voice can be heard in a choir that otherwise sings in unison. This is something that is not excused. "
Tahar Ben Jelloun
Voice
Individual
Heard
" I love life in spite of all that mars it. I love friendship, jokes and laughter. "
Tahar Ben Jelloun
Love
Life
Mars
" For me, poetry is a situation - a state of being, a way of facing life and facing history. "
Tahar Ben Jelloun
Me
History
Situation
" In Morocco, it's possible to see the Atlantic and the Mediterranean at the same time. "
Tahar Ben Jelloun
Possible
See
Time
" My sensibility steers me toward writers who are out on their own. "
Tahar Ben Jelloun
Sensibility
Who
Toward
" 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
Voice
Situation
Keep Going
" 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
Speak
World
Out
" My hope is that countries like Morocco will have investment to create work, so people don't have to leave. "
Tahar Ben Jelloun
Hope
Create
Investment
" The mistake we make is to attribute to religions the errors and fanaticism of human beings. "
Tahar Ben Jelloun
Human
Errors
Religions
" The world does not look to us in the Arab world out of a healthy desire for knowledge. "
Tahar Ben Jelloun
Healthy
Knowledge
World
" Poetry is a form of mathematics, a highly rigorous relationship with words. "
Tahar Ben Jelloun
Mathematics
Poetry
Words
" 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
People
Day
Every Day