A lot of Arabs have proven to themselves that there is an alternative to Bin Laden-ism if they want to do away with the corrupt, autocratic regimes in their countries.

Courage is not the absence of fear. Courage is the recognition that some things are more important than fear - and what's more important to me is faith.

One of the enduring lessons of history is that whenever an empire becomes insular to 'protect' itself, intellectual decline and cultural intolerance are sure to follow.

Guys like Bin Laden have been responsible for injuring and maiming and murdering more Muslims than any foreign imperial power has in the last hundred years.

If ever there was a moment for an Islamic reformation, it’s now. For the love of God, what are we doing about it?

Bin Laden-ism, I don't think, is dead yet. And I think there's a long way to go before we can legitimately say that, you know, it is no longer in our midst.

The truth is rarely pure and never simple. Often, love is a tangled web of lies that only a broken heart would weave. Seldom is dishonesty the whole person, rather it's the pain.

The success of an organization will depend on the people you surround yourself with.

There's nothing like fishing to pass the time and to incline toward a sort of magnificent stupidity in which nothing matters but tackle, bait, sunlight and the strike.

I just always thought, I love acting and I love writing. And when I haven't got any more good breath and good energy, then I'll write.

Literature is the voice of the human heart.

It is silly to go on pretending that under the skin we are brothers. The truth is more likely that under the skin we are all cannibals, assassins, traitors, liars and hypocrites.

Human beings are under the control of a strange force that bends them in absurd ways, forcing them to play a role in a bizarre game of deception.

Whether I'm involved in creating something or not, it's a personal issue of do I respect it. But you can only know that five or ten years later.

So many problems are solved simply by knowing enough verbs.