We do not have many intellectuals who can speak out for us internationally. We have no writers who are recognized, respected and loved outside the Arab world.

I don't feel guilty about expressing myself in French; nor do I feel that I am continuing the work of the colonizers.

In the 70s I was in exile; every time I went back I wondered if they'd take my passport away.

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.

Real friendship, like real poetry, is extremely rare - and precious as a pearl.

My sensibility steers me toward writers who are out on their own.

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