One of the strange things about violent and authoritarian regimes is they don't like the glare of negative publicity.

In the experience of art, time seems not to exist. When I'm writing and think, "I've been working for two hours," I've actually been working for seven.

Islam is unusual in that it's the only one of the great world religions which was born inside recorded history. That there's an enormous amount of factual historical record about the life of a prophet and about social conditions in Arabia at that time. So it's possible to look at the origin of Islam in a scholarly way.

I stand with Charlie Hebdo, as we all must, to defend the art of satire.

Music, love, death. Certainly a triangle of sorts; maybe even an eternal one. "The only people who can see the whole picture," he murmured, "are the ones who step out of the frame."

Broad-mindedness is related to tolerance; open-mindedness is the sibling of peace.

The whole story of migration and what that has done in interconnecting the planet is obviously something I've written about a lot.