The bigger you become of a celebrity, the bigger the expectations, the pressure on you - to make change, to say what people want, to target the people they want to target. Fame is toxic; it is quite toxic.

I do think that this planet is a totally unjust planet. I mean throughout history - history paints a beautiful picture when it's written by the victorious, but it's a planet that belongs to the strong and the more able, and usually they are tyrants. So basically, I don't see justice happening to the crushed and the weak.

I can go back to Egypt anytime I want. Can I leave Egypt anytime I want? I think I can. I think I can.

Sarcasm all around the world is always against right wing and against people in power. That's the definition of political sarcasm.

Intelligence is the wife, imagination is the mistress, memory is the servant.

I believe writers need to be chameleons, or like Meryl Streep, who can play all sorts of characters. A good writer should be able to cross gender lines and people of all social classes. So for me, writing from a male point of view would be a great challenge, that I would look forward to taking on.

The need to make music, and to listen to it, is universally expressed by human beings. I cannot imagine, even in our most primitive times, the emergence of talented painters to make cave paintings without there having been, near at hand, equally creative people making song. It is, like speech, a dominant aspect of human biology.

I don't pay attention to auction prices. Nothing interests me less. One of the benefits of not being an artist is I don't have to navigate the social hierarchies of the art world as a person of desire. I don't need anything. I live in a different way.