"Sleep, when one has no worries, tastes like honey."

"Oh yes, poverty is something to be ashamed of, and this was clear to me from the mutterings of my own parents, from t…"

"Since that day, I have slowly acquired the uneasiness about my clothes that characterizes the poor who are ashamed. I…"

"My mother tongue is the Tunisian dialect, which I speak with the proper accent of the young Moslem kids of our part o…"

"I was cornered, without any escape, and began to think of death for the first time in my life. Without being at all s…"

"In moving to this new street that we called the Passage, Mother saw an old dream of hers come true. She was now livin…"

"It was in the Passage that I discovered tribal life and learned to hate it. How happy had been the intimacy of our bl…"

"How vain and futile are all theoretical and philosophical constructions of the mind when compared to the brutal reali…"

"Once I had overcome my rage against Vichy, the numerus clausus, and the Fascist Legion, I began to doubt the treason …"

"We lived at the bottom of the Impasse Tarfoune, in a little room where I was born one year after my sister Kalla. Wit…"