It is no use painting the foot of the tree white, the strength of the bark cries out from beneath the paint.

Nothing is as dangerous as an ignorant friend; a wise enemy is to be preferred.

We have gotten away from this double aspect of either putting the character back into historical events or of making a historical event of his very life.

It is through accepting other people in our own countries that we shall come to respect our neighbours and be respected in our turn.

But where are the snows of yester year?

If one of two lovers is loyal, and the other jealous and false, how may their friendship last, for Love is slain!

Be vigilant, for nothing one achieves lasts forever.

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.

Dressed in the lion’s skin, the ass spread terror far and wide.

All confessions are Odysseys.

I liked Sartre’s views but not his writing.

Poetic knowledge is born in the great silence of scientific knowledge.

Anyone entrusted with power will abuse it if not also animated with the love of truth and virtue, no matter whether he be a prince, or one of the people.

When Ulysses hears his own story sung by an epic poet and then he reveals his identity and the poet wants to continue singing, Ulysses isn’t interested any longer. That’s very astonishing.

My characters are driven by a passionate desire for justice. They are rebellious and incorruptible.

It is twice the pleasure to deceive the deceiver.

Now will I rehearse before you a very ancient Breton Lay. As the tale was told to me, so, in turn, will I tell it over again, to the best of my art and knowledge....

Beauty is first and foremost an emotion.

The world does not look to us in the Arab world out of a healthy desire for knowledge.

The strongest passion is fear.

All societies are historical.

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

Let us dream that once upon a time have lived men stronger and greater, who were more determined for good or for evil; that does us good.

The function of genius is to furnish cretins with ideas twenty years later.

Ulysses finds himself unchanged, aside from his experience, at the end of his odyssey.

My hope is that countries like Morocco will have investment to create work, so people don’t have to leave.

Better a living beggar than a buried emperor.

Out of five hundred who speak glibly of love, not one can spell the first letter of his name.

Egypt has suffered more ordeals than the other countries to get where it is.

There are very few great poets in the world.

People must help one another; it is nature’s law.

Fiction has consisted either of placing imaginary characters in a true story, which is the Iliad, or of presenting the story of an individual as having a general historical value, which is the Odyssey.

I read a poem every night, as others read a prayer.

The study of social progress is to-day not less needed in literature than is the analysis of the human heart.

Whosoever counts these Lays as fable, may be assured that I am not of his mind.

It doesn’t seem to me that anyone has discovered much that’s new since the Iliad or the Odyssey.

My sensibility steers me toward writers who are out on their own.

Help thyself and Heaven will help thee.

The dead and past stories that I have told again in divers fashions, are not set down without authority.

Emigration is no longer a solution; it’s a defeat. People are risking death, drowning every day, but they’re knocking on doors that are not open.

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

People who make no noise are dangerous.

It is the creator of fiction’s point of view; it is the character who interests him. Sometimes he wants to convince the reader that the story he is telling is as interesting as universal history.

I write about wounds, the eternal treasons of life. It’s not very funny, but it’s sincere. My commitment is to sincerity.

Casey was the better team and the better team won.

But sweetly and discreetly love passes from person to person, from heart to heart, or it is nothing worth.

To have one’s own story told by a third party who doesn’t know that the character in question is himself the hero of the story being told, that’s a technical refinement.

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.

I bend and do not break.

There are divers men who make a great show of loyalty, and pretend to such discretion in the hidden things they hear, that at the end folk come to put faith in them.