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

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

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.

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 am a guest of the French language. My poems in French are born of my interaction with the French language, which is not the same as that of a French poet.

Egypt has suffered more ordeals than the other countries to get where it is.

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