One of the problems with defending free speech is you often have to defend people that you find to be outrageous and unpleasant and disgusting.

Dissensions between Muslim nations run at least as deep, if not deeper, than those nations' resentment of the West.

Discovery is fun. I am incredibly open to everything.

What's real and what's true aren't necessarily the same.

You don't that often see writers being sought out when there are matters of great moment to discuss. And I think that's a loss.

I suppose authoritarians don't like being made fun of because authoritarian rulers have a very inflated sense of themselves and don't like being deflated, which makes it all the more important to continue to deflate them. These are very courageous people around the world who poke fun from inside these societies. So, we now have to broaden the definition of what we mean by "writer" to include bloggers, cartoonists, song writers, visual artists - all these people are, in different ways, quite brave.

I'm not a prophet, but I always thought it was natural for dictatorships to fall. I remember in 1989, two months before the fall of the Berlin Wall, had you said it was going to happen no one would have believed you. The system seemed powerful and unbreakable. Suddenly overnight it blew away like dust.