Intellectuals try to keep going. But their situation is very difficult. Those who have had the courage to voice their opposition have often paid a very high price.

It is through accepting other people in our own countries that we shall come to respect our neighbours and be respected in our turn.

I do not use the language of my people. I can take liberties with certain themes which the Arabic language would not allow me to take.

For me, poetry is a situation - a state of being, a way of facing life and facing history.

We have no Arab intellectuals of international stature because we live in a state of generalized mediocrity. We are suspended in the pit without touching the bottom.

We must stop posing as victims of the West and behaving negatively towards the West. We must participate with the West on an equal footing in the reconstruction of the world.

At 21, I discovered repression and injustice. The army would shoot students with real bullets.