But nobody predicted anything of this magnitude in terms of resistance. And in part, the magnitude of the resistance was spurred by our failures in reconstruction.

Do what you love. It’s going to lead to where you want to go.

Almost all Iraqis with any previous experience in the intelligence business are Sunni Arab, increasing the risk of penetration of the new intelligence apparatus by the insurgency.

But I think frustration is hilarious. One of my missions is to bring humor into fine art. It's sacred.

I throw dignity out the window, and just become a creature of the moment on the stage. I act like I'd never act in real life.

If they make the deadline because the Shiites and Kurds essentially rammed a draft through over Sunni Arab objections, there will be hell to pay.

I hate people who act too cool for school. Just own up to it, dude.

The written word is the only anchor we have in life. How extraordinary would it be if we had even three or four paragraphs written honestly about their lives by our ancestors?

It's about communication, no matter how impossibly hard your art is to understand and how much of an ivory tower or high horse you get on, it's still basically communication or why are you doing it?

The only tip I have for an artist is perseverance... Never give up.

It would be really embarrassing to introduce yourself as somebody who makes beauty.

Nothing in life is guaranteed except change, but I guess that could change.

We’re to be married. Does it matter if I permit it?”“To me it does, yes, ” says Merek. “And I imagine you, like me, appreciate the illusion of having a choice, even when illusion is all it is.

I live my life in the light of your love.

Courage, not compromise, brings the smile of God's approval.

One of the oddest things in life, as we all know, is the way that when you have heard a thing mentioned, within twenty-four hours you nearly always come across it again.

Hashish will be, indeed, for the impressions and familiar thoughts of the man, a mirror which magnifies, yet no more than a mirror.

Do you know...what I think is a great pity? It is this: that we have all become such skeptics that we hardly believe what our pious grandmothers told us.

She was not often invited to join in the conversation of the others, nor did she desire it. Her own thoughts and reflections were habitually her best companions.

Some say the world will end in fire, some say in ice.

Don't improve it into a flop!