Tahar Ben Jelloun

"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."

"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"

"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…"

"But bad manners or vulgar gestures can sometimes have a touch of poetry about them, just enough not to arouse one's indignation."

"The secret was there, in those pages, woven out of syllables and images."

"The father had no luck. He was convinced that some distant, heavy curse weighed on his life: out of seven births, he had had seven daughters. The house was occupied by ten women—the seven daughters, the mother, Aunt Aysha, and Malika, the old servant woman. The curse was spread over time. The father thought that one daughter would have been enough. Seven was too many; tragic, even."

"I saw some words slowly rise and hit the damp ceiling. There they melted in contact with the stone and fell back on my face as drops of water. It amused me. The ceiling was like a writing table."