54 Quotes by Leïla Slimani

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.

I don't listen to music. I know it's weird, and I have no explanation for that. But I never do.

When you become a 'public person,' I find it very difficult to keep following social media. It is too harsh, too violent. I only read newspapers online.

People are not born evil, although we all have evil within us.

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.

A mother should never be blamed for working.

As a mother, you're only allowed to talk about the 'good' moments - not the ones when you've had enough and want to be on your own. Or just want to be a woman, not a mother.

I just don't believe that a woman is naturally closer to her child than a man. Not at all.

People don't want to treat their nannies subserviently. They don't want to act like bosses. And so nobody quite knows how to behave, and everyone is slightly pretending that the mother and nanny are 'equal' - when that's not the case. And pretending you are equal can make things complicated, even dangerous.