Most of those who died did not die of hunger but of hatred. Feeling hatred diminishes you. It eats at your from within and attacks the immune system. When you have hatred inside you, it always crushes you in the end.

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

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.

It is impossible to disregard such an important medium as television. We should know how to use it, learn to work in it and express new values in it.

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

Poetry is a form of mathematics, a highly rigorous relationship with words.

I am glad to have found a readership, but one can’t write only what is likely to sell. A writer is not a shopkeeper. A writer creates an imaginary world that he transmits to others.