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" 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. "

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" 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

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

" 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. "

" I am a Moroccan writer of French expression. "

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

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

" Beauty is first and foremost an emotion. "

" 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. "

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

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

Tahar Ben Jelloun

Friendship

Real

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

" I write about wounds, the eternal treasons of life. It's not very funny, but it's sincere. My commitment is to sincerity. "

" Be vigilant, for nothing one achieves lasts forever. "

" For me, poetry is a situation - a state of being, a way of facing life and facing history. "

Tahar Ben Jelloun

History

Situation

" 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. "

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

" 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. "

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

" There are very few great poets in the world. "

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

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

" 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. "

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

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

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

" 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. "

" 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. "

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

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

" 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. "