People must insist on the right to say no, to be alone, to stand out from the herd. Creative artists can say all this in their own way and in their own field, by hard, rigorous work.

To lead a country, you must periodically hold a national consultation in which people representing different programmes can make a bid for power.

I liked Sartre's views but not his writing.

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.

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

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

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.