It is amazing how, when all possibilities seem to be taken away from you, the minutest opening can become a great freedom.

Unfortunately for governments like that of Iran, when they forbid something, people become more interested.

It is only through literature that one can put oneself in someone else’s shoes and understand the other’s different and contradictory sides and refrain from becoming too ruthless. Outside the sphere of literature only one aspect of individuals is revealed. But if you understand their different dimensions you cannot easily murder them.

Art is as useful as bread.

Empathy lies at the heart of Gatsby, like so many other great novels-the biggest sin is to be blind to others problems and pains. Not seeing them means denying their existence.

I think Islam is in a sense, in crisis. It needs to question and re-question itself.

Basically, fundamentalism is a modern phenomenon. In the same way that Hitler evoked a mythological religion of German purity and the glory of the past, the Islamists use religion to evoke emotions and passions in people who have been oppressed for a long time in order to reach their purpose.