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All Tahar Ben Jelloun Quotes
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

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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

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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

49% of people like this quote
We must have our say, not through violence, aggression or fear. We must speak out calmly and forcefully. We shall only be able to enter the new world era if we agree to engage in dialogue with the other side.
Tahar Ben Jelloun

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

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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

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

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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.
Tahar Ben Jelloun

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There is a gulf between the Arab peoples and Arab intellectuals.
Tahar Ben Jelloun

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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

47% of people like this quote
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.
Tahar Ben Jelloun

47% of people like this quote
At 21, I discovered repression and injustice. The army would shoot students with real bullets.
Tahar Ben Jelloun

46% of people like this quote
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