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

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.

Those who do not have power over the story that dominates their lives, power to retell it, to rethink it, deconstruct it, joke about it, and change it as times change, truly are powerless, because they cannot think new thoughts.

Why obliterate the exceptional merely in order to make the outstanding look finer than it was?

Free speech is the whole thing, the whole ball game. Free speech is life itself.

There is a widespread difficulty in the Muslim world, which has to do with how the people are taught about examining their own history. A whole range of stuff has been placed off limits.

Religion is responsible for a lot of the problems in the history of the world and it's not something that I practice or recommend, but to each his own.