I spent 24 and a half years in prison

In two years, there were 22 military coups d'etat, essentially in Africa and the third world. The coup d'etat of Algiers, in 1965, is what opened the path.

Colonialism is an idea born in the West that drives Western countries - like France, Italy, Belgium, Great Britain - to occupy countries outside of Europe.

Everywhere that the struggle for national freedom has triumphed, once the authorities agreed, there were military coups d'etat that overthrew their leaders. That is the result time and time again.

Let us all agree to die a little, or even completely so that African unity may not be a vain word

Peace does not include a vendetta; there will be neither winners nor losers.

I accommodated practically all of the liberation movements, including those of Latin America.

When I was engaged in the struggle for my country, I was very young. My horizons were open.

Those who are leftists, once in power, are not different from other parties.

I am the son of poor peasants who came at a very young age to live in Algeria. I only recently saw the place where they were born, near the city of Marrakech.

Yes, I am Algerian of Moroccan origin through my parents, but all my life is Algeria. I was born there.

We are all swimmers before the dawn of oxygen and earth. We all carry the memory of that breathable blue past.

The Orange Revolution in Ukraine is a good example of how people, who are robbed of their right to vote, can protest and put an end to dictatorship.

Joyce is a poet and also an elephantine pedant.

We're prisioners of... things.Of who we are.

So, these political activities will create friction in and of themselves, and in this environment of friction there'll be additional violence.

For as fire is kindled by fire, so is a poet's mind kindled by contact with a brother poet.

I realize that we've come to a different way of showing movies. But I'm still with the old ways, and I can't change.

Without aggression, it becomes possible to think well, to be curious about differences, and to enjoy each other's company.

The idea of reinvention has always seemed bizarre to me.

And when I think about that, I think that if nothing but being married will help a man, he's durn nigh hopeless.