For me, poetry is a situation - a state of being, a way of facing life and facing history. -Tahar Ben Jelloun Poetry
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 Poetry
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 Death
I love life in spite of all that mars it. I love friendship, jokes and laughter. -Tahar Ben Jelloun Friendship
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 Legal
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 Courage
Real friendship, like real poetry, is extremely rare - and precious as a pearl. -Tahar Ben Jelloun Poetry
Poetry is a form of mathematics, a highly rigorous relationship with words. -Tahar Ben Jelloun Poetry
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 Women
Real friendship, like real poetry, is extremely rare - and precious as a pearl. -Tahar Ben Jelloun Friendship
Poetry is a form of mathematics, a highly rigorous relationship with words. -Tahar Ben Jelloun Relationship
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 Poetry
