The idea of the sacred is quite simply one of the most conservative notions in any culture, because it seeks to turn other ideas - uncertainty, progress, change - into crimes.
If you actually want to change your world, there is a better way of doing it than blowing yourself up.
Rock and roll music - the music of freedom frightens people and unleashes all manner of conservative defense mechanisms.
Such is the miraculous nature of the future of exiles: what is first uttered in the impotence of an overheated apartment becomes the fate of nations.
What distinguishes a great artist from a weak one is first their sensibility and tenderness second, their imagination, and third, their industry.
Throughout human history, the apostles of purity, those who have claimed to possess a total explanation, have wrought havoc among mere mixed-up human beings.
If you take a look at history, you will find that the understanding of what is good and evil has always existed before the individual religions. The religions were only invented by people afterwards, in order to express this idea.
In this world without quiet corners, there can be no easy escapes from history, from hullabaloo, from terrible, unquiet fuss.
There is a widespread difficulty in the Muslim world, which has to do with how the people are taught about examining their own history. A whole range of stuff has been placed off limits.
What distinguishes a great artist from a weak one is first their sensibility and tenderness second, their imagination, and third, their industry.