I still write in literary Arabic but I try to rid it of the rhetoric, the symbolism, and the stuff that ordinary people don't understand.

Knowledge and imagination are the life buoy and the extra lung for breathing outside the walls of a tainted reality.

I'm talking about the essence of humanity. Hope is mixed into the blood of every human being, everywhere and in every time.

It's ridiculous and painful to use the Arabic of an Iraqi poet who lived centuries ago to describe what we in Iraq are suffering today.

I studied at the Academy during the years of economic sanctions. Life was almost dead because the sanctions imposed on Iraq by the civilized world were so strict.

One of the Baathists once told me, "If you're not careful, I'll have you put away," and those words meant death.

We in Iraq have not descended from another planet. Just as people in many other countries have gotten over the tragedy of war, Iraq will get over its ordeal.

In fact I didn't think about fear much at the time. I felt angry about everything that was happening around me: the violence of the dictatorship and the violence of society.

The trail of "secret migration" was a shock to me. I knew a little about the difficulties, just bits of news in the media.

I didn't start publishing literary texts until I had left Iraq. At the Academy [of Cinematic Arts] I was busy with short films.

You learn something from the classics but your feelings and your imagination operate in the domain of the colloquial. We need to think seriously about reforming the Arabic that we use today.

The more you smile, the more reasons you will find to smile.

So grateful for those who truly love me... they hear everything I don't say.

I don't know if there is a one for me. I think I might like variety.

Guilt is one side of a nasty triangle; the other two are shame and stigma. This grim coalition combines to inculpate women themselves of the crimes committed against them.

To create something exceptional, your mindset must be relentlessly focused on the smallest detail.

The atonement of Jesus Christ is the only remedy and rest for my soul.

The Arabic states have to be integrated into the Iraqi reconstruction. We need the help of the Arabic community, which understands its culture. Americans arrive, invade, occupy.

The five principles of aloha, when practiced together, awaken our awareness of our human potential and the sacredness of our life.

I have a constant sort of melancholy approach to acting that fuels me. I want to do everything.

Had I lived in Palestine, in the days of Jesus of Nazareth, I would have washed his feet, not with my tears, but with my heart's blood!