Most of what matters in your life takes place in your absence.

Shame is like everything else; live with it for long enough and it becomes part of the furniture.

When...did it become irrational to dislike religion, any religion, even to dislike it vehemently? When did reason get redescribed as unreason? When were the fairy stories of the superstitious placed above criticism, beyond satire? A religion was not a race. It was an idea, and ideas stood (or fell) because they were strong enough (or too weak) to withstand criticism, not because they were shielded from it. Strong ideas welcomed dissent.

It's a terrible thing that your life turns into a good story.

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.

There is a point beyond which conciliation looks like capitulation. I do not believe I passed that point, but others have thought otherwise.

If I were dead, then nobody in England would have to fuss about the cost of my security and whether or not I merited such special treatment for so long.