“Women covering their heads is traditional, but now we’re seeing more and more women covering themselves from head to toe. This is said to be for religious reasons but it’s actually the conflation of religion and politics – every political movement has its slogans, flags and dress.”

There is a huge difference between being tolerant and tolerating intolerance.

I would rather clean than beg.

Islam was like a mental cage. At first, when you open the door, the caged bird stays inside: it is frightened. It has internalized its imprisonment. It takes time for bird to escape, even after someone has opened the doors to its cage.

I see no difference between Islam and Islamism. Islam is defined as submission to the will of Allah, as it is described in the Koran. Islamism is just Islam in its most pure form.

The liberal psyche wants to protect minorities, to apologize for imperialism, colonialism, slavery, and the appalling treatment of black people during the civil rights movement. At the same time, they want to continue to defend the rights of individuals.

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.

Things that are seen are temporal; things that are unseen are eternal.

A Christian is never in a state of completion but always in a process of becoming.

He [Christ] died for me. He made His righteousness mine and made my sin His own; and if He made my sin His own, then I do not have it, and I am free.

Scripture is like a pair of spectacles which dispels the darkness and gives us a clear view of God.

The whole being of any Christian is faith and love. Faith brings the person to God, love brings the person to people.

The excellence of the Church does not consist in multitude but in purity.

When you’re full of yourself, God can’t fill you. But when you empty yourself, God has a useful vessel.

When the Bible speaks, God speaks.