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 SlimaniRead
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.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote expresses the complex emotions of a parent, where love is intertwined with fear for the child's well-being.
In this poignant quote, Leila Slimani reflects on the dual emotions that accompany parenthood. While love for a child is profound and immediate, it is often accompanied by an instinctive fear of losing them or being unable to protect them. This fear underscores the depth of parental love, revealing that the two emotions can coexist, highlighting the vulnerabilities that come with caring for another human being.
Themes
LoveFearParentingEmotionVulnerability
In practice
Example use cases
A parent might share this quote during a discussion on the challenges of raising children.
More from Leila Slimani
All quotes →Authorities in Rabat believe that if we create a Moroccan character, even in a work of fiction, we are responsible for the image of Moroccan women.
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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?
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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.
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In Morocco, there is an insistence on authority. Children are not encouraged to speak up in front of their parents. My parents were not like this. I was the kind of girl who could tell her father, 'No, what you are saying is totally untrue, and I don't agree with you.'
Leila SlimaniRead
It's very important to say that French doesn't belong to France and to French people. Now you have very wonderful poets and writers in French who are not French or Algerian - who are from Senegal, from Haiti, from Canada, a lot of parts of the world.
Leila SlimaniRead
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