53 Powerful Quotes By Tahar Ben Jelloun
Tahar Ben Jelloun is one of the better known French writers from Morocco. The highlight of his writing career came when he published his Nobel Prize winning novel L’Enfant de Sable (The Sand Child). He also received Prix Goncourt for his work in this novel. Although his mother tongue is Arabic, most of his work is in French. Jelloun’s other notable works include ‘The Sacred Night’, ‘With Downcast Eyes’ and ‘This Blinding Absence of Light’. He also received International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award for his phenomenal work in Cette aveuglante absence de lumière (This Blinding Absence of Light). Jelloun also highlighted the atrocities Muslim women face due to rampant racism and orthodox Muslim ideas in his 1996 novel Les raisins de la galère (The Fruits of Hard Work). He has honored with Cross of Grand Officer of the Légion d'honneur from Nicolas Sarkozy. We have curated his quotes and thoughts from his writings, observations, views, interviews etc. Here are few excerpts from some of the greatest quotes from this Nobel laureate.
Don't worry, life is good despite everything!
To lead a country, you must periodically hold a national consultation in which people representing different programmes can make a bid for power.
A modern civilization is only possible when it is accepted that singular beings exist and express themselves freely.
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.
I am glad I have found a readership, but one can't write only what is likely to sell. A writer is not a shopkeeper.
Our first love is always our last.
It is through accepting other people in our own countries that we shall come to respect our neighbours and be respected in our turn.
L'âme humaine ne s'explique pas par la psychologie. Elle ne peut être expliquée, elle est à vivre.
At 21, I discovered repression and injustice. The army would shoot students with real bullets.
I liked Sartre's views but not his writing.
I write about wounds, the eternal treasons of life. It's not very funny, but it's sincere. My commitment is to sincerity.
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.
My characters are driven by a passionate desire for justice. They are rebellious and incorruptible.
There are very few great poets in the world.
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.
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.
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.
What have we achieved since the end of the Second World War? We have allowed petty, bourgeois regimes in which everything is average, mediocre.
The world does not look to us in the Arab world out of a healthy desire for knowledge.
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.
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.
My sensibility steers me toward writers who are out on their own.
For me, poetry is a situation - a state of being, a way of facing life and facing history.
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.
I don't feel guilty about expressing myself in French; nor do I feel that I am continuing the work of the colonizers.
In the '70s I was in exile; every time I went back I wondered if they'd take my passport away.
I am a Moroccan writer of French expression.
I read a poem every night, as others read a prayer.
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.
