The publishing of a book is a worldwide event. The attempt to suppress a book is a worldwide event.

Doubt, it seems to me, is the central condition of a human being in the twentieth century.

I think the veil is a way of taking power away from women.

In the end, you write the book that grabs you by the throat and demands to be written.

In early Islam, it was an absolute tenet that the prophet was not to be worshipped. The prophet was a messenger. And one of the things that's happened in Islam is this cult of the prophet, which to my view is counter to the original tradition.

I am clearly vulnerable to these more passionate and volatile unstable relationships. I am trying to not be so vulnerable.

We are the storytelling animal.