Islam doesn't have to mean blind faith. It can mean what it always meant in your family, a culture, a civilization, as open-minded as your grandfather was, as delightedly disputatious as your father was.... Don't let the zealots make Muslim a terrifying word, I urged myself; remember when it meant family.

Two things form the bedrock of any open society - freedom of expression and rule of law. If you don't have those things, you don't have a free country.

The only way to find out why someone decides to engage in armed combat is to look at their individual personality.

To be born again,' sang Gibreal Farishta tumbling from the heaveans, 'first you have to die. Ho ji! Ho ji! To land upon the bosomy earth, first one needs to fly Tat-taa! Takatun! How to ever smile again, if first you won't cry? How to win the darling's love mister, without a sigh?

Fundamentalism isn't about religion, it's about power.

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

The world is about the way in which our dreams intersect with our real life. Endlessly, the world of the imagination changes the world.