No one ever told me that grief felt so like fear.
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.
There's no violence worse than the violence of Iraq. For the last fifty years Iraq has been living a nightmare of violence and terror. It's been a horrible experience and people in Iraq will need a lot of time and work to get over the disastrous effects. But first we have to think about how to stop the violence, so that the bloodshed stops. In spite of everything, on the personal level I don't easily lose hope.
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'm talking about the essence of humanity. Hope is mixed into the blood of every human being, everywhere and in every time.
While I was studying film at the Academy, the problems started. I wasn't a political activist directly in the time of Saddam [Hussein], because the dictator was so cruel and brutal that no one could criticize or complain. I felt futile and empty. The only solution in Iraq was to run away.
How can one talk in a classical language about a child who's torn apart in an explosion in the market near his school? People in Iraq don't talk about their joys, their problems, and the destruction of the country in literary diction.
If anybody needs anything else at their tables, just speak slowly and clearly into your table numbers. Someone from the NSA will be right over with a cocktail.
I've never heard of a situation where, because somebody had a particular political belief, they didn't get a part. I think it's a bit of a myth.
All my works are games, serious game.
People used to believe their life--or at least their life as a performer--was over at 28 or some ungodly age! God, when I think of myself back then, I had no idea who I was. I think I'm barely getting that under control now.