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

There is an important erotic element in A Thousand and One Nights, which is one of the keys to understanding the Orient.

I'd thought sexuality was instinctive or natural, but it's profoundly linked to inner security and cultural context.

I have written about the dispossessed, immigrants, the condition of women who do not enjoy the same legal rights as men, the Palestinians who are deprived of their land and condemned to exile.

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.

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.

I love life in spite of all that mars it. I love friendship, jokes and laughter.