Names, once they are in common use, quickly become mere sounds, their etymology being buried, like so many of the earth's marvels, beneath the dust of habit.

It may be argued that the past is a country from which we have all emigrated, that its loss is part of our common humanity.

Originality is dangerous. It challenges, questions, overturns assumptions, unsettles moral codes.

I do not need the idea of God to explain the world I live in.

It seems to me it's perfectly possible to vehemently disagree with a piece of work and to say that it's offensive and insulting and so on and so on. And you're absolutely entitled to do that and to speak back, if you like, against that piece of speech with all the vehemence at your disposal. I mean, that's legitimate. Even other things. People have a right to demonstrate.

I remember when I was young, many cities in the Muslim world were cosmopolitan cities with a lot of culture.

When you know what you're against you have taken the first step to discovering what you're for.