Leila Slimani Quotes

Leila Slimani

Profession : Writer

Birth : October 3, 1981

All fiction is based on truth - 'Madame Bovary' is based on a true story!

Leila Slimani

I love looking at pieces of art through the eyes of a child.

Leila Slimani

I like to describe my characters as though they were all trapped in a glass box.

Leila Slimani

I am not afraid of being a pariah.

Leila Slimani

I like anti-hero women. Negative female characters interest me.

Leila Slimani

The only way you can know someone is through their actions - you can never know what's going on inside them.

Leila Slimani

'Lullaby' is about boundaries.

Leila Slimani

I want to say that I can be Moroccan and speak about someone without speaking about his nationality. Because, you know, I have the feeling that when you come from Morocco, when you come from Afghanistan, when you come from Africa, Occidental people always wait for you to write a novel about identity.

Leila Slimani

For me, it is freedom, freedom from everything: when I write, I'm not a woman. I'm not a Muslim. I'm not a Moroccan. I can reinvent myself, and I can reinvent the world.

Leila Slimani

I am not patriotic or nationalistic, but the French language is like a country where I take refuge when I have nowhere else to go. It consoles me for everything. For me, the language no longer belongs to the colonialists.

Leila Slimani

My two sisters and I had a very nice nanny at home in Morocco until I was 13. I remember my parents saying how she had insinuated herself into our family. They knew she would suffer when we broke away from her.

Leila Slimani

I grew up in Morocco. I was born a Muslim, and, every year, I celebrated Christmas in a big white house in the country, halfway between Meknes and Fez.

Leila Slimani

One of the big mistakes of the Moroccan elite and the elite in the Muslim world was to be afraid of the conservatives. They are fighting for their ideas. Why shouldn't we fight for our ideas?

Leila Slimani

I remember that the first time I looked at my son, of course I felt love. But I think the first feeling was not love: it was fear. Someone is needing me. If something happens to him, what am I going to do? Maybe I won't survive if something happens to him? The fear was as big as the love.

Leila Slimani

I knew I wanted to write about a nanny, but it was difficult for me to find a narrative rhythm.

Leila Slimani

When you live closely with people, you don't see who they really are. In particular, with nannies, they only exist in your home, and when they leave, they don't really exist anymore for you.

Leila Slimani

I had a nanny growing up in Morocco, and my parents encouraged me to put myself in her shoes sometimes.

Leila Slimani

I, too, am interested in identity and Islam, which is what people expect of us. But one must not write what is expected. It's important for North African writers to show they have other things to say.

Leila Slimani

A nanny is a woman who lives in an apartment, but the apartment is not her own. She raises children, teaches them how to walk, how to speak; she gives them food - but these children are not her children. So she is in a very ambiguous place.

Leila Slimani

I remember, when I was a teenager, people telling me, 'You know, when you are a mother, you will never feel lonely. You will feel so much love, and you will be fulfilled by this love.' Then I became a mother. And I learnt that is absolutely wrong: you can feel very lonely with your children, even if you love them.

Leila Slimani