Islamism is not Islam. Islamism is the politicisation of Islam, the desire to impose a version of this ancient faith over society.

No idea is above scrutiny. No idea whatsoever. To criticize, to scrutinize and to satirize my own religion [Islam] is not Islamophobia.

There are no globalized, youth-led, grassroots social movements advocating for democratic culture across Muslim-majority societies. There is no equivalent of Al-Qaeda without the terrorism.

Does freedom of speech give the right to offend?

Once you subscribe to an ideological dogma as a solution to certain grievances, it then frames your mindset.

After much soul searching I was able to renounce my past Islamist ideology, challenging everything I was once prepared to die for.

I believe that preventing radicalisation is far more efficient than de-radicalisation, meaning stopping someone joining is a lot easier than trying to pull someone out once they've joined.

We have to render Islamist extremism as unattractive as communism has become today.

In prison I had the opportunity to debate and discuss people that had subscribed to all forms of Islamism.

I am everything I am today, because of my past.

Within our lifetime, we can remember a time when Islamism wasn't the dominant form of discourse or the aim should be to minimise the absolutists within any religious community and contain them.

Life is a gift and a challenge.

The best audience is intelligent well-educated and a little drunk.

Whether you are a woman on a tea plantation in Kenya, or a stockbroker on Wall Street, or a Hollywood actress, no one is being paid equally.

The creative person is both more primitive and more cultivated, more destructive, a lot madder and a lot saner, than the average person.

Romantic love is an obsession. It possesses you. You lose your sense of self. You can’t stop thinking about another human being.

For every day the government is shut down, it should be that we don't have to pay income tax that day because they're not working.

A photographer without a magazine behind him is like a farmer without fields.

There's one thing about Kyriagos - he's tall, he's physical and he's slow

I have noticed that if you look carefully at people's eyes the first five seconds they look at you, the truth of their feelings will shine through for just an instant before it flickers away.

What is new is not always true, and what is true is not always new.