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"Poetry is a form of mathematics, a highly rigorous relationship with words."
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"You need a poetic touch from the outer space? Then you need the moonlight!"

"I love writing poetry because it's pretty. I love writing pretty."

"Good poetry does not exist merely for the sake of itself, but rather, is a byproduct of yearning and growth; great poetry canonizes that yearning for the growth of others."

"The secret of poetry is never explained - is always new. We have not got farther than mere wonder at the delicacy of the touch, & the eternity it inherits. In every house a child that in mere play utters oracles, & knows not that they are such. 'Tis as easy as breath. 'Tis like this gravity, which holds the Universe together, & none knows what it is."

"A poem can't do its work if you only read snippets of it."

"The poet knows that he speaks adequately, then, only when he speaks somewhat wildly."

"Women do not have as great a need for poetry because their own essence is poetry."

"From what the moderns want, we must learn what poetry should become; from what the ancients did, what poetry must be."
Explore more quotes by Tahar Ben Jelloun

"In the Arab world, there is no link between the cultural habits of peoples and the ways of thinking and creating of modern intellectuals. They are two separate worlds."

"I came to poetry through the urgent need to denounce injustice, exploitation, humiliation. I know that's not enough to change the world. But to remain silent would have been a kind of intolerable complicity."

"The mistake we make is to attribute to religions the errors and fanaticism of human beings."

"I'd thought sexuality was instinctive or natural, but it's profoundly linked to inner security and cultural context."

"Intellectuals try to keep going. But their situation is very difficult. Those who have had the courage to voice their opposition have often paid a very high price."
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