A mature society understands that at the heart of democracy is argument.

War used to be something you could stand on the nearby hill and watch. Now we have total war; everybody's in it. We have total economics as well. Everything affects everybody. The Malaysian currency shakes, and people around the world are seriously affected.

I have been a film buff all my life and believe that the finest cinema is fully the equal of the best novels.

When we stop believing in the gods we can start believing in their stories.

When you write you in a way write out of what you think of as your best self, the part of you that is lacking in foibles and weaknesses and egotism and vanities and so on. You're just trying to really say something as truthful as you can out of the best that you have in you.

If Turkey wants to join Europe, it will have to become a European country, and that might take a long time.

Obviously, a rigid, blinkered, absolutist world view is the easiest to keep hold of, whereas the fluid, uncertain, metamorphic picture I've always carried about is rather more vulnerable.