“I am glad I have found a readership, but one can't write only what is likely to sell. A writer is not a shopkeeper. ”

“I have at least the whole of my life to answer a question: Who am I? And who is the other? A gust of wind at dawn? A motionless landscape? A trembling leaf? A coil of white smoke above a mountain? I write all these words and I hear the wind, not outside, but inside my head. A strong wind, it rattles the shutters through which I enter the dream.”

“Pain, too, comes from depths that cannot be revealed. We do not know whether those depths are in ourselves or elsewhere, in a graveyard, in a scarcely dug grave, only recently inhabited by withered flesh. This truth, which is banal enough, unravels time and the face, holds up a mirror to me in which I cannot see myself without being overcome by a profound sadness that undermines one's whole being. The mirror has become the route through which my body reaches that state, in which it is crushed into the ground, digs a temporary grave, and allows itself to be drawn by the living roots that swarm beneath the stones. It is flattened beneath the weight of that immense sadness which few people have the privilege of knowing. So I avoid mirrors.”

“A modern civilization is only possible when it is accepted that singular beings exist and express themselves freely.”

“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”

“il m'arrive de quitter ma peau et d’être spectateur de mon état”

“Respecter une femme, c'est pouvoir envisager l'amitié avec elle ; ce qui n'exclut pas le jeu de la séduction, et même, dans certains cas, le désir et l'amour.”