I write about wounds, the eternal treasons of life. It's not very funny, but it's sincere. My commitment is to sincerity.

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

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.

Be vigilant, for nothing one achieves lasts forever.

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.

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

Religion has to stay in the heart, not in politics. It is private.