“The truth was only another mask, even if it was the best fit, the closest to skin and all that lay beneath”

“It's a terrible thing to be alone -- yes it is -- it is -- but don't lower your mask until you have another mask prepared beneath -- as terrible as you like -- but a mask.”

“You could never know what transpired beneath another's skin.”

“Masks beneath masks until suddenly the bare bloodless skull.”

“Ah yes, the facts. I've spent my whole life running after them, convinced that if I found demonstrable, incontrovertible facts I would also find some kind of truth. Now aged sixty-three, faced with this war which has only just begun and with an unsettling premonition of what is soon to follow, I'm beginning to think the facts are just a front and that the truth they mask is at best like a Russian doll: as soon as you open it up you find a smaller one inside, then another which is even smaller, then another and another, till finally all you are left with is something the size of a grain.Letters against the war: Letter from Quetta, 2011.”

“Behind this mask there is more than just flesh. Beneath this mask there is an idea... and ideas are bulletproof.”