Tahar Ben Jelloun Quotes & Sayings (Page 5)

“There are very few great poets in the world.”

“There is a gulf between the Arab peoples and Arab intellectuals.”

“To lead a country, you must periodically hold a national consultation in which people representing different programmes can make a bid for power.”

“What have we achieved since the end of the Second World War? We have allowed petty, bourgeois regimes in which everything is average, mediocre.”

“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.”

“New ideas should confront old ideas. We must refer to the example of Europe. People have fought to make Europe what it is today. Freedom is not something that is served up on a plate.”

“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.”

“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.”