Membership of an organisation is good, as long as you can make yourself heard.

Some people say that we here have no freedom of religion, ... In reality, the people in that country are the ones who were forced to embrace a religion.

Most developing countries would know Malaysia quite well. Why? It is because we believe in contacts. We offer them some help for training, for example. We call it 'technical cooperation'.

I cannot keep quiet even when I am a lone voice.

When I became Prime Minister, I looked back on what was done before – what were the policies and actions before – and I thought that I need to be critical if I’m going to do anything at all.

I'm brash and abrasive but that's because I've noticed when people are nice and polite they never get anywhere.

Once started, religious strife has a tendency to go on and on - to become permanent feuds. Today we see such intractable inter-religious wars in Northern Ireland, between Jews and Muslims and Christians in Palestine, Hindus and Muslims in South Asia and in many other places. Attempts to bring about peace have failed again and again. Always the extremist elements invoking past injustices, imagined or real, will succeed in torpedoing the peace efforts and bringing about another bout of hostility.