The ethnocultural connotations of the burkini ban are very strong. It's as absurd as mandating that women have to go topless on the beach. If I were a woman, I definitely would not want to wear a burkini or a headscarf. But it's not about what I want.

If my daughter wanted to wear a headscarf and dress in a religiously conservative way, I would be heartbroken. But if she were to decide to do that and she were to live in a place where people said she couldn't do that, I would be entirely committed to her right to do so.

It is the effect of scarcity; one’s rules of propriety make one thirst for the improper.

It's important to have a non-nostalgic view and say, let's look forward, because if we don't, all we'll hear are voices telling us to go back.

If differences can be hidden, perhaps they aren't differences at all.

If the dominant political expression that we're seeing right now is of nostalgia and we know that nostalgia won't really work out, what happens is, we become depressed as individuals and societies - when we're depressed, we're much more vulnerable to be taken advantage of by demagogues and xenophobes.

Why the brevity? Because I'd rather people read my book twice than only half-way through