The woman with dark hair, wide hips, and a few extra pounds has always been the essence of beauty in Morocco.

Writing is one of the most ancient forms of prayer. To write is to believe communication is possible that other people are good, that you can awaken their generosity and their desire to do better.

The real mistake of women was to let the memoir, the collective, the history, space of producing history - to let it in the hands of men.

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'.

Being frozen into the passive position of an object whose very existence depends on the eye of its beholder turn the educated modern Western women into a harem slave.

Maturity is when you start feeling the motion of zaman (time) as if it is a sensuous caress. p.216

Pessimism is the luxury of the powerful.

I, as a Muslim woman living in 1993, I want to have two things - the mosque and the satellite, both at the same time. And no one can mutilate me by telling me I cannot have the mosque or the Koran.

I am intelligent enough to be critical towards the West and take what I need and reject what is bad for me.

Morocco is such a beautiful place. It's incredibly beautiful. And also it is captivating place because for a writer, you feel that you make impact.

Someone else is going to read for me or go at my place to the mosque, and/or to tell me you shouldn't take anything from the West because the West is the enemy and so on. It is to me to decide.

Money is not a problem, your poor mentality is.

At least the tears on my desk wipe away the dust that's covered this place

You always have an option to opt between, 'You will always remember' and 'You will never forget'.

I don't have a caustic sense of humor. What I find funny, that humor comes from a much gentler place.

Updike and Bellow and Roth were my three favorite writers when I was young and throughout my life.

Life is, of course, terrible.

Counting lines is probably a good idea if you want to print it out and are short on paper, but I fail to see the purpose otherwise.

Sometimes I looked at them and sometimes they looked at me, but rarely did we look at one another.

Good writing is a kind of skating which carries off the performer where he would not go.

Meditation is a journey without movement. In the external world you have to move in order to go ahead, in meditation you don't move, yet you attain.