I have a general feeling that writers and artists who are in this peculiar situation, of being a persecuted artist, all anyone ever asks about is the persecution. It may well be that's the last thing in the world they want to talk about. There were many years in which every journalist in the world wanted to talk to me, but nobody wanted to talk to me about my work. That felt deeply frustrating because I felt there was an attempt to stifle me as an artist. The best revenge I could have was to write.

I seem to have fallen for women with missing parents. Goodness knows what it signifies.

A photograph is a moral decision taken in one eighth of a second.

One of the things a writer is for is to say the unsayable, speak the unspeakable and ask difficult questions.

It is often said by religious people that without its framework, there is no sense of right or wrong. My view is that religion comes after ethics.

Religion, a mediaeval form of unreason, when combined with modern weaponry becomes a real threat to our freedoms. This religious totalitarianism has caused a deadly mutation in the heart of Islam and we see the tragic consequences in Paris today.

‎No people whose word for 'yesterday' is the same as their word for 'tomorrow' can be said to have a firm grip on the time.