Abraham Zogoiby covered his face that night in August 1939 because he had been assailed by fear, [...] a sudden apprehension that the ugliness of life might defeat its beauty; that love did not make lovers invulnerable. Nevertheless, he thought, even if the world's beauty and love were on the edge of destruction, theirs would still be the only side to be on; defeated love would still be love, hate's victory would not make it other than it was.

Of course, there is nothing intrinsic linking any religion with any act of violence. The crusades don't prove that Christianity was violent. The Inquisition doesn't prove that Christianity tortures people. But that Christianity did torture people.

There is nothing like a War for the reinvention of lives.

To understand just one life you have to swallow the world ... do you wonder, then, that I was a heavy child?

Sometimes people have said that Islam, in its own calendar, is still only in the Middle Ages.

And so it is they who, between them, give me all the reasons for believing in none.

The Chinese are good at repression and can be pretty ruthless about it.