“The Russians are fighting for us, for the world, and for their self.”

You want me to believe American evidence and don’t want me to believe the indications that we have. We live here, this is our reality.

You cannot be desperate when the army is making advances. That should have happened – if we take into consideration that this presumption is correct and this is reality – you use it when you’re in a desperate situation.

The question is who threw chemicals on the same day on our soldiers. That’s the same question. Technically, not the soldiers. Soldiers don’t throw missiles on themselves. So, either the rebels, the terrorists, or a third party. We don’t have any clue yet.

We are worried that rebels are taking control in many countries, and look at the results now. Are you satisfied as an American ? What are the results ? Nothing. Very bad – nothing good.

Our democracy should reflect our culture and our habits and our customs and our reality at the same time.

There is no such things as “Islamic terrorism,” because terrorism differs from Islam. There’s just terrorism, not Islamic terrorism. But the term “Islamic terrorism” has become widespread.

Before the 11th of September, in my discussions with many officials of the United States, some of them are Congressmen, I used to say that “don’t deal with terrorists as playing games.” It’s a different story. You’re going to pay the price if you’re not wise in dealing with terrorists.

That’s the problem with the American position; they think that they are the police of the world.

We don’t say that we don’t have it, we’re still secular in Syria, but with the time, this secularism will be eroded.

As a state, as a government, in 2001 we proposed to the United Nations to empty or to get rid of every WMD in the Middle East, and the United States stood against that proposal. This is our conviction and policy.

This is where we can discuss the evidence [of the chemical weapons ], but he doesn’t have it. He didn’t present it because he doesn’t have it, Kerry doesn’t have it. No one in your administration has it. If they had it, they would have presented it to you as media from the first day.

[United States] are sovereign country, they are an independent country, but this is their limit; they don’t have to interfere in any other country.

Look at the results of regime change in Iraq. You can’t possibly claim that it was successful.

In the United States, they always talk about subtitles, about chapters in a book without taking the main title of the book. They talk about a subtitle in a chapter and if you ask them about the headline, the main title, they say they do not know.

Tayyip Erdoğan is megalomaniac President, he is not stable. He lives during the Ottoman era, he doesn’t live in the current time. He’s out of touch with the reality.

There can be no peace without unity.

It’s not about me, again, this fight is not my fight, it’s not the fight of the government ; it’s the fight of the country, of the Syrian people.

Life’s full of lots of dream-stealers always telling you you need to do something more sensible. I think it doesn’t matter what your dream is, just fight the dream-stealers and hold onto it.

If a person wants to be of any use to himself, he better insist on getting his fair share of beauty and pleasure, and if there’s something about the system that’s keeping him from getting his share, then I think he’s well within his rights to fight to change that.

I don’t have fights with actors. In absolute honesty, I’ve never fought with any actor ever.

You never fight your eye when you look at a hole. If it looks one way, play it that way. Don’t make a big deal out of an easy shot.

I think Democrats are right. We fight for the American dream, for the environment, for privacy rights, a woman’s right to choose, a good public education system.

The problems of this world are so gigantic that some are paralysed by their own uncertainty.

The job is never done and every generation has to fight again.