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.

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.

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 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.

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.

I have a new philosophy. I'm only going to dread one day at a time.

We prayed these wars would end all wars --In war we know is no rom

Can't be on the front lines fighting a war with the weapons given to you by the enemy.

Don’t be that kind of person who goes about falling in love everywhere.

Her mother admonished through closed lips, the sound a mother can make mean anything from "pick up your socks" to "we are very disappointed you have murdered those orphans.

He was a Parisian, ’ he said. ‘You can never be sure what Parisians believe in – beyond Paris of course.

When you stop making excuses and you work hard and go hard you will be very successful.

He is a despicable sage whose wisdom does not profit himself.

Literally, I kissed a girl, and ,like, a week later, she broke up with me. I was like, 'Oh my God, was it that bad?!'

Love endures when the lovers love many things together And not merely each other.