We must stop posing as victims of the West and behaving negatively towards the West. We must participate with the West on an equal footing in the reconstruction of the world.

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.

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

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.

Beauty is first and foremost an emotion.

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.

Our steps invent the path as we proceed; behind us they leave no trace, only the void. So we shall always look ahead and trust our feet. They will take us as far as our minds will go... -- Tahar ben Jelloun