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.

There is an important erotic element in A Thousand and One Nights, which is one of the keys to understanding the Orient.

My sensibility steers me toward writers who are out on their own.

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.

I am glad to have found a readership, but one can’t write only what is likely to sell. A writer is not a shopkeeper. A writer creates an imaginary world that he transmits to others.

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.

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