We're programmed to believe that time is the enemy, that it takes away from us or that it diminishes us. I have found that it's done the opposite to me. Life is in perfect balance. It's just that our perception of it isn't.

First of all, in many Muslim countries women have incredible amounts of freedom, sometimes more than in some countries in Europe. So you cannot just make a generalized statement about women. Second, Islam is not the problem. It's tradition. It's culture. It's age-old mind-sets that need to be changed.

Religion and modernity are not necessarily mutually exclusive.

I've learned to take things a little more easily, to be a little more forgiving of myself.

Of course democracy is good, but it is a process, not a prescription.

Social media are a catalyst for the advancement of everyone's rights. It's where we're reminded that we're all human and all equal. It's where people can find and fight for a cause, global or local, popular or specialized, even when there are hundreds of miles between them.

By its very nature, hard-line ideology is self-serving and self-perpetuating; its primary goal is to survive - and that precludes everything.