Religion has to stay in the heart, not in politics. It is private.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

I love life in spite of all that mars it. I love friendship, jokes and laughter.