I first became a vegetarian when I was nine, in response to an argument made by a radical babysitter. My great change – which lasted a couple of weeks – was based on the very simple instinct that its wrong to kill animals for food. – Jonathan Safran Foer

I came to poetry through the urgent need to denounce injustice, exploitation, humiliation. I know thats not enough to change the world. But to remain silent would have been a kind of intolerable complicity. – Tahar Ben Jelloun