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.

As far as I'm concerned, there is no line between high art and pop art, and there should be no line.

When others try to provoke (instigate) you and you don’t get provoked, it is known as a spiritual victory.

Republics exist as long as the people "adhere to principles and virtue.

A society that forgets about art risks loslng its soul.

Our disappointment sits between us.

[Hillary Clinton] talks about solar panels. We invested in a solar company, our country. That was a disaster. They lost plenty of money on that one.

But I am more than a name. More than they tell me

I would be stupid not to be on my own side. But I'm a human being, too. And I'm on the side of human beings, rather than on the side of crocodiles.

Writing reminds you that you're never alone. Writing and reading is to be optimistic.

It blew my mind that this stuff had survived for two thousand, three thousand years.

Does not the possibility or the power to do something about the situation at hand confer on one the responsibility to do it?