I'm very open and never write what I'm going to say. Speeches bore everybody else. I have to freestyle. Every time, from one program to another, everything changes and I improvise.

This clash of the culture, East and the West, us and them, Muslim and Christian, does not exist.

You have to be narcissistic to be an artist. You have to think you are the centre of the whole thing otherwise why do you create? The only thing is to recognise it, and then you make the best of it.

Well, I would have much preferred to have had a normal childhood. I would have loved it if my greatest dilemma, at 14, was whether to go to Benetton for my pullovers. I would have preferred not to have cried all the tears I have cried.

I'm a very individualistic person. That is why I don't belong to any political party or anything. I really believe in justice and freedom.

I realized that I was more of a sprinter than a marathon man. With a long, long project, I get bored easily.

I realized then that I didn't understand anything. I read all the books I could.