Top 124 Quotes & Sayings by Moroccan Authors - Page 2

Growing up, I was taught that a woman should lower her gaze so that men could never know her thoughts. The so-called modesty of Arab women is, in fact, a war tactic.

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

As for the French language, it's probably one of the most beautiful in the world. I speak a little bit and I can follow conversations, but I think it will take time to improve myself.

That's only in America. We don't have French doors in France.

The symbolic significance of individual athletes' achievements has sometimes proved more productive than the negotiations of diplomats or politicians.

My name, my origins, my background and my experiences are what leveraged my success. The angle of the immigrant, through which I examined the reality in France, distinguished me.

When you succeed, at a certain point, you want to challenge yourself. Otherwise, you become boring. You become a has-been. It's not very interesting. I don't want to be this guy who has only succeeded in France. I could say, 'O.K., that's it; merci.' But I'm not interested in that.

I symbolized doping... My phone rarely rings. I can count on the fingers of one hand the number of riders who call 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. I mean, when I write something in the press, the day after in the fish market, people will be discussing it.

Now that Arab women are pouring into the streets by the million, men discover with dismay that they, not women, were the captives of the harem dream.

Female success stories from sporting events like the Olympic Games have played a role in shifting the Indian perception to see the female athlete as a hero and a role model for young Indian girls.

Sport is and should remain a great school of life that supports young people in their personal development. It teaches respect for others and also for oneself.

After New York, Chicago is my favorite city. It's just this great mix of Europe and America. The friends I have there are smart and witty and fun.

What the Olympics and other mega-events have shown is that the significant investment required to host an international games successfully has the power to transform a region, and even a nation.

I may appear to be full of myself because I always want better.

When they don't know you, when you don't have credits and they're thinking, 'I don't know this French guy,' your first five minutes are trying to seduce them, trying to get them on your side. And it's not easy.

Bike riding requires permanent sacrifice. It means training 11 months out of 12 and 110 days of racing, whatever the weather conditions. Early in life, I realised I did not have intellectual potential, so I dedicated myself to cycling.

We need to fight violence and ignorance. It is true: when one strolls out, one sees women with scarves and men with beards. This has always been the case in Morocco. Morocco is built on tolerance.

If there is one thing that the women and men of the late 20th century who have an awareness and enjoyment of history can be sure of, it is that Islam was not sent from Heaven to foster egotism and mediocrity.

Consumerist ads brainwash us into individualist and egotistic self-love.

There's so many funny things to say about being with Charlotte. I've worked on a few bits about it - not to be indiscreet but because the shock of culture and values is so interesting.

In Islamic societies, politicians can manipulate almost everything. But thus far, no fundamentalist leader has been able to convince his supporters to renounce Islam's central virtue - the principle of strict equality between human beings, regardless of sex, race, or creed.

The factors that have been holding farmers back are similar to those that threaten other types of growth in Africa. Infrastructure and transport are in many cases quite poor, resulting in the losses of huge amounts of produce.

It was important to score points today and I went for them with my guts.

Culturally, it is commonplace for African women to work.

You find in the Koran hundreds of verses to support women's rights, and perhaps four or five that do not.

There, they tell me to wear the veil. Here, they are telling me to put my hips in a little girl's skirt, and I am this lovely full woman. You've got this Ph.D. and you're worrying, 'Am I skinny enough?'

My first was in 1994 and it's ten years ago already. It's been ten years and I'm still around. I won a stage again, like I did last year and the year before.

Americans don't like puns and plays on words, which is totally opposite in the comedy world to France or even Italy and Germany.

Sporting achievements bestow a sense of unification on the cultures and societies in which they take place and create an outpouring of nationalism and pride.

Sport is a great equalizer that can build bridges, transcend borders and cultures, and render even the fiercest conflicts temporarily irrelevant.

I beg the Most High to allow me the favour of the double reward, but if God only finds me worthy of one reward, I will accept it in all humility.

Morocco is completely alive for me because I spent about a third of my life there. The first few times I went back to Casablanca, I walked through the streets and remembered how years earlier I had walked those same streets and prayed that a miracle would happen and I would leave and become famous.

Everywhere I go in America, when they learn I'm from France, the first thing they ask me is if I'm a huge Jerry Lewis fan. I've never been able to figure that out.

As Commander of the Faithful, it is out of the question that I fight Islam. We need to fight violence and ignorance. It is true, when one strolls out, one sees women with scarves and men with beards. This has always been the case in Morocco. Morocco is built on tolerance.

If, by chance, you were to meet me at the Casablanca airport or on a boat sailing from Tangiers, you would think me self-confident, but I am not. Even now, at my age, I am frightened when crossing borders because I am afraid of failing to understand strangers.

Sport is one of the few spaces where people can learn about different cultures in a spirit of trust and friendship.

My foundation is based on helping children, and I hand-pick projects that are close to my heart and home.

Sport allows us to engage in dialogue and to build bridges, and it may even have the capacity to reshape international relations. The Olympic Games embody perfectly this universal mission.

America is where standup comedy was born. It's the standard. So you want to go and do your job where this is the mecca of what you do.

In the organization of any major sporting event or the planning of a building, long-term thinking is key.

The modern Muslim state has never presented itself as secular. Muslim nationalist forces, trapped by a militant and colonialist West unable to share or export its humanism, were driven to build up a rampart, to entrench themselves within the past.

Contrary to what many Westerners believe, Islam has a rich tradition of secular painting in spite of its ban on images. It is only in religious rituals that the use of pictorial representation is totally prohibited.

Sporting events like the Olympics have developed and maintained a clear message of promoting gender equality as an essential criterion in the success of any international event.

I had been playing beach volleyball all day, painted my nails red, and threw on a green dress. I thought I looked great at the time, but looking back, I realize that my debut into Monaco society should have been better executed!

It's only fitting that a Jewish comic makes his Just for Laughs anglo debut in a church, right?

I want to talk to the audience. This is what I've been doing in my work in French forever - talking about small things becoming big problems. I notice all the details, all the tiny little things.

Actually, I don't like dogs. I'm from Morocco, and people there don't like animals.

One cannot understand what's happening to women in the Middle East if they don't realize that the mothers are a strong, progressive force. The mothers push the daughters to get out of the harem, to get the education, to achieve what they could not even dream of.

Africa's informal economy is one of the most innovative and inventive environments in the world. Yet it is an environment with little regulation in which workers are often exposed to hard conditions and live without a safety net.

As African economies boom and businesses are created, one of the big questions this growth raises is that of third-level education: how can Africa develop a knowledge infrastructure to rival that of the west, a sort of Harvard University in Africa?

I talk about my dad and the American dream, and I just want to say to Americans how fascinated we are by America. We would love Americans to look at the rest of the world that way sometimes.

Even an unsuccessful Olympic bid can be the source of change within a city if organizers adhere to their vision.

He's dangerous, he's beautiful, and he loves the heat, like me - that's why I had a scorpion tattooed on my leg in 1999 after my fifth jersey.

Since all power from the seventh century on was only legitimated by religion, political forces and economic interests pushed for the fabrication of false traditions.

The waves of religion based on terrorism in the 1990s are based on the tormented response of a mutilated Muslim society whose progressive forces have been savagely emasculated. Why on earth is the Arab world so hostile to women? Why can it not see women as a force for development?

While Muslim men describe themselves as insecure in their harems, real or imagined, Westerners describe themselves as self-assured heroes with no fears of women. The tragic dimension so present in Muslim harems - fear of women and male self-doubt - is missing in the Western harem.

I was in a steak house once, and someone proposed. I was so embarrassed. The woman started crying, and I thought, 'She was just proposed to in a steak house - I'd be crying, too.'

It is my firm belief that action on the issues that matter for Africa must emerge from within Africa itself.

Inspiration, in its rich variety, must be present in any discussion about Africa. We need role models - they are essential to the advancement of our society.