“Artists thrive on suffering.”
“Few artists thrive in solitude and nothing is more stimulating than the conflict of minds with similar interests.”
“Great artists suffer for the people.”
“Only suffering grows big artists.”
“No true artist is possible without sorrow and suffering and renunciation.”
“In thirty years Iraq too has gone from being among the most modern and secular of Arab countries -with women working, artists thriving, journalists writing- into a squalid playpen for a megalomaniac.”