If you're offended, it's your problem.

If terrorism is to be defeated, the world of Islam must take on board the secularist-humanist principles on which the modern is based, and without which their countries' freedom will remain a distant dream.

Cruelty is not a literary value.

We are described into corners, and then we must describe ourselves out of corners.

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.

Language is courage: the ability to conceive a thought, to speak it, and by doing so to make it true.

People are always telling me that they've seen people reading my books on the subway, or the beach, or whenever.