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

Tahar Ben Jelloun

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" 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. "

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

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" 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. "

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" Religion has to stay in the heart, not in politics. It is private. "

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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. "

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" 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. "

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

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" Beauty is first and foremost an emotion. "

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" 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. "

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

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" 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 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. "

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" 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

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

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" 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

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

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

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

Tahar Ben Jelloun

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

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

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" 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

" My characters are driven by a passionate desire for justice. They are rebellious and incorruptible. "

Tahar Ben Jelloun

" I am a Moroccan writer of French expression. "

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

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

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

Tahar Ben Jelloun

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

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

Change The World

" 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