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" In one way, I fear all Damascus is a dungeon. Or do you have to live here to appreciate that? "

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" Bin Laden always wanted to get rid of Mubarek and Ben Ali and Gaddafi and so on, claiming that they were all infidels working for America, and in fact, it was millions of ordinary people who peacefully, more or less - certainly in the case of Tunisia and Egypt - got rid of them. "

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" The dead cannot speak. But hitherto unknown information has emerged from the confidential archives of the Syrian presidency and foreign ministry, published in a new book by Bouthaina Shaaban, who spent ten years as Hafez's interpreter and is still an adviser to his son Bashar. "

" There is nothing so satisfying as to be shot at without effect. "

" The word 'democracy' and the name of Assad do not blend very well in much of Syria. "

" I'm not sure whether I've been happy. After my last book tour, I sat on my balcony with a cup of tea. I thought: 'You can't rewind the movie. I've spent more than half my life in the Middle East. There have been great moments of horror and depression and loneliness.' "

" Israel lost its war. Will Assad's enemies lose, too? "

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" We are constantly trying to cope with what our fathers or our grandfathers did. I wrote the book 'Great War of Civilization,' and my father was a solider in the First World War which produced the current Middle East - not that he had much to do with that - but he fought in what he believed was the Great War for Civilization. "

" The biggest problem I have in journalism is being quoted or misquoted and then being asked to defend something I haven't said. "

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