There's a lot of sympathy, but some people in America don't care. They think Syria is a very faraway place and that it's none of their business.

Since I was a teenager, I had wanted to come to the United States to establish my name as a writer and to establish my freedom. As a writer and artist, I cannot do anything without freedom. For me, freedom is just like the air or water. I cannot write without freedom.

I'm homesick. But I cannot go back to Syria. I lost everything. And I'm against the Syrian regime, so there is no way to go back. I'm really homesick.

There's a lot of sympathy, but some people in America don't care. They think Syria is a very faraway place and that it's none of their business.

Some of my good friends who were writers disappeared. Others are still inside Syria and there are others who are refugees. I'm worried about those who disappeared. I don't know anything about them now. They just disappeared like that after the war started, while I was living in the United States.

Weakness is worse than cancer, I think. It's a kind of psychological or spiritual cancer. And if you have a goal in your life, you'll get psychological immunity. Psychological immunity is a kind of optimism, just like spring.

Before Donald Trump, I was not worried. To be honest with you, when I came to the United States, I felt freedom right away. But after Trump, I became worried not only for immigrants, not only for Muslims, not only for the US. Now I'm worried for the whole world.