“As soon as something like Monty Python’s ‘The Life of Brian’ appears with a Muhammad figure as the main lead, directed by an Arabic Theo van Gogh, the controversial late Dutch filmmaker, we will have taken an enormous step forward.”

The Christian take on Hellfire seems less dramatic than the Muslim vision, which I grew up with, but Christian magical thinking appeals to me no more than my mother’s angels and djinns.

But without doubts, without a standpoint reached through questionings, human beings can’t acquire knowledge.

In the real world, equal respect for all cultures doesn’t translate into a rich mosaic of colorful and proud peoples interacting peacefully while maintaining a delightful diversity of food and craftwork. It translates into closed pockets of oppression, ignorance, and abuse.

However, some things must be said, and there are times when silence becomes an accomplice to injustice.

My conscience is informed by reason. It’s like Kant’s categorical imperative: behave to others as you would wish they behaved to you.

If we don’t take effective measures now, the Netherlands could be torn between two extreme rights.

In April 2006, a Dutch court ordered that I leave my safe-home that I was renting from the State. The judge concluded that my neighbors had a right to argue that they felt unsafe because of my presence in the building.

Muslim leaders should ask themselves what exactly their relationship is to a political movement that encourages young men to kill and main on religious grounds.

All my life I have been a nomad.

I believe that the dysfunctional Muslim family constitutes a real threat to the very fabric of western life. It is in the family that children are groomed to practise, promote and pass on the norms of their parents’ culture.

They decided to let immigrants in and I am an immigrant. They gave us a chance to participate in this country’s life and I took it.

We must reclaim and retake feminism from our fellow idiotic women.

I’d like Muslims to look at their religion as a set of beliefs that they can appraise critically and pick and choose from.

I don’t have much in me left for Somalia, because the country is so broken, it’s not realistic to daydream about it.

European children are educated in a narrative of human tolerance every day, and if you want to be sure to prevent a backlash, you should at least think of bringing Muslim children and teenagers into the fold of that narrative of tolerance.

I do not believe in God, angels and the hereafter.

I think controversy has this allusion of being controversial but it’s totally not, which is why I’m trying to get away from it because it’s just easy and automatic.

It’s not controversial to say that human activity is contributing in some way. The question is how serious that is.

Some of the record company people, they wouldn’t let me put this out, … They said it would be too controversial. But this picture is saying ‘Look, they can stand together. Don’t have to be no fight.’

I decided I ought to pick a project that would not be controversial, that would not really cost the government a lot of money.

I admire Madonna because she always did whatever she felt like doing. She went through some controversial periods when people rejected her, but she kept on reinventing herself.

I curated this show [Shanghai Biennale ], I was by no means trying to shock people or be controversial.

I like an interesting movie even if it’s controversial or offensive, depending on your taste.

Many times I heard Imam Ahmad saying (when asked to give his opinion) on controversial scholarly issues ‘I do not know.’