“Can we reconcile indefinitely these two imperatives: the desire to preserve every individual's special identity and the need for Europeans to be able to communicate with one another all the time an...”

“You could read a dozen large tomes on the history of Islam from its very beginnings and you still wouldn't understand what is going on in Algeria. But read 30 pages on colonialism and decolonisatio...”

“...it's better to wake up amid the pangs of desire than amid those of remorse.”

“Taking the line of least resistance, we lump the most different people together under the same heading. Taking the line of least resistance, we ascribe to them collective crimes, collective acts an...”

“I no more believe in simplistic solutions than I do in simplistic identieties. The world is a complex machine that can't be dismantled with a srewdriver. But that shouldn't prevent us from observin...”

“The twentieth century will have taught us that no doctrine in itself is necessarily a liberating force: all of them may be perverted or take a wrong turning; all have blood on their hands - communi...”

“I am a person before I am anything else. I never say I am a writer. I never say I am an artist...I am a person who does those things.”

“The point, I decided, wasn't to have the autobiography or even the memories. The point was who I became when I wrote.”

“The willingness to reach inside every part of yourself opens the door to total understanding. You place your entire identity on the line, not just an isolated part. This may sound daunting, but act...”