Quotes by Moroccan Authors

Unfounded gossip can turn into sanctioned history if falls into the hands of the right storyteller.
Laila Lalami
Dignity is to have a dream, a strong one, which gives you a vision, a world where you have a place, where whatever it is you have to contribute makes a difference.
Fatema Mernissi
The hypocrite is the great winner in this life which is the truth.
Aksil Ben Elassri (Anas Elassri)
it will be miraculous, very miraculous.
Malika Oufkir
But Aunt Habiba said not to worry, that everyone had wonderful things hidden inside. The only difference was that some managed to share those wonderful things, and others did not. Those who did not explore and share the precious gifts within went through life feeling miserable, sad, awkward with others, and angry too. You had to develop a talent, Aunt Habiba said, so that you could give something, share and shine. And you developed a talent by working very hard at becoming good at something. It could be anything - singing, dancing, cooking, embroidering, listening, looking, smiling, waiting, accepting, dreaming, rebelling, leaping. 'Anything you can do well can change your life', said Aunt Habiba.
Fatema Mernissi
But you'll see, you can feel time on the wind it whips up as it passes. We don't worry about time or the wind. Nothing can touch us any more. As long as people remember us, we are here. Anyway, it's the wind that tells us, lets us know about the thigs we've left behind.
Tahar ben Jelloun
Having a passive personality, is a soft way to live a dead life.
Omar EL KADMIRI
Happiness, she would explain, was when a person felt good, light, creative, content, loving and loved, and free. An unhappy person felt as if there were barriers crushing her desires and the talents she had inside. A happy woman was one who could exercise all kinds of rights, from the right to move to the right to create, compete, and challenge, and at the same time could be loved for doing so. Part of happiness was to be loved by a man who enjoyed your strength and was proud of your talents. Happiness was also about the right to privacy, the right to retreat from the company of others and plunge into contemplative solitude. Or sit by yourself doing nothing for a whole day, and not give excuses or feel guilty about it either. Happiness was to be with loved ones, and yet still feel that you existed as a separate being, that ou were not just there to make them happy. Happiness was when there was a balance between what you gave and what you took.
Fatema Mernissi
Telling a story is like sowing a seed—you always hope to see it become a beautiful tree, with firm roots and branches that soar up in the sky. But it is a peculiar sowing, for you will never know whether your seed sprouts or dies.
Laila Lalami
Man is more noble dead than alive, because in returning to the earth he becomes earth, and nothing is nobler than the earth that entombs us, closes our eyes, and blossoms in a beautiful eterneity.
Tahar ben Jelloun
Did my father talk to me? It's true, he didn't say a lot to me, but I knew what had to be done. No need for big speeches. He taught me the fundamentals of our religion: My son, Islam is simple: you are alone responsible for yourself before God, so if you are good, you will find goodness in the afterlife, and if you are bad, you'll find that instead. There's no mystery: everything depends on how you treat people, especially the weak, the poor, so Islam, that means you pray, you address the Creator and don't do evil around you, don't lie, don't steal, don't betray your wife or your country, don't kill- but do I really need to remind you of this?
Tahar ben Jelloun
Never assume that anyone in this world can really understand your circumstances other than from their own perspective. People perceive things based only upon their personal frames of reference and their personal experiences. However, when aims, purposes, and aspirations are similar, people tend to work together toward a common goal.
Sidi Ahmad Zarruq
[It's] long been known that making fun of oneself is only a way of taking oneself seriously slightly less crude than others. 97
Marcel Benabou
A human being was connected to the world through his or her skin and how could someone with clogged pores feel the environment or be sensitive to its vibrations?
Fatema Mernissi
Your heart is the correspondent of your soul. It knows the grooves of joy.
Karen Ruimy
His anger took many shapes: sometimes soft and familiar, like a round stone he had caressed for so long that is was perfectly smooth and polished; sometimes it was thin and sharp like a blade that could slice through anything; sometimes it had the form of a star, radiating his hatred in all directions, leaving him numb and empty inside.
Laila Lalami
The universe had an odd sense of fairness; it took away things one did not want to give up, and then gave things one did not ask for.
Laila Lalami
How can they love me ,if I can't even love myself?
Rokaya Hajjaji
Drunk words are sober thoughts
Asmaa Ed-dahri
Traveling leaves you speechless, then turns you into a storyteller
Ibn Battuta
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.
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.
Tahar ben Jelloun
In search for love, where love is some Oxytocin,seeking happiness related to Orexin. Sensations of glory, motivation and success, They are all some precious chemicals. Our mind is greedy, and falls into depression when he is no longer satisfied. LIFE IS A DRUG STORE WE ARE ALL JUNKIES.
Omar EL KADMIRI
As I'd seen over and again, people who see themselves as victims sometimes don't notice when they become oppressors.
Souad Mekhennet
Traveling leaves you speechless, then turns you into a storyteller.
Ibn Battuta
When you are in trouble, you need to put all your energies into thinking that there is a way out. Then, the bottom, the dark hole, becomes just a springboard from which you can leap so high that your head might hit a cloud.
Fatema Mernissi
When life gets tough, just love it a bit harder.
Mounia Bagha
There are many ways to be beautiful. Fighting, swearing, and ignoring tradition could make a women irresistible.
Fatema Mernissi
Nature is woman's best friend,' she [Yasmina] often said. 'If you're having troubles, you just swim in the water, stretch out in a field, or look up at the stars. That's how a woman cures her fears'.
Fatema Mernissi
Thou seekest Lailâ. Yet she manifesteth herself within thee.Thou deemest her to be elsewhere, but elsewhere existeth not.That is a madness, well-known to lovers. So be on your guard, for otherness is the epitome of separation.Seest thou not, how her beauty enfoldeth thee.She disappeareth only if thou refusest part of thee.Come close to me, thou sayst to her, to her who is thine All.And when she loveth thee, she leadeth thee to thyself.Bliss ineffable is the meeting with her.No one reacheth her, who knoweth not essence without form.I have dissimulated about her,After I had truly displayed her through my veil.I hid her from myself, with the garment of mine own existence,And, out of jealousy, I hid her from the envier.Dazzling beauty! Should the light of thy countenanceTouch the eyes of a blind man, he would see each particle of dust.She is adorned with every grace pertaining unto beauty.And wherever she appeareth, she is desired by those who love.(Diwân)
Muhammad al-Harrâq
But when your situation is hopeless, all you can do is turn the world upside down, transform it according to your wishes, and create anew.
Fatema Mernissi
As a child, at the age when others promise to be Chateaubriand or nothing, I had written that I would be myself or nothing. I had certainly not foreseen that one day I would find myself in the position of being both myself and nothing. 65
Marcel Benabou