“If we look at Abdel Nasser in Egypt as an Arab leader, he was secular.”

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

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

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.

Ironically, xenophobic nationalists are utilizing the benefits of globalization.

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

Does freedom of speech give the right to offend?

When I returned to the United Kingdom, I found that I could no longer justify Islamist extremism as the antidote.

Amnesty International adopted me as a prisoner of conscience, and that led to my – it touched me in a way that really led to me opening up my heart, I’ve called it the re-humanisation process.

I can now say that the more I learnt about Islam, the more tolerant I became.

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

No form of theocracy, whether it’s manifested in a violent or non-violent form, is ever good for civilisation, and we have to challenge it in civil society as well as we would challenge Christian-based theocracy, or any other form of bigotry.

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.

The Bosnian Genocide was something that triggered my consciousness and led to an awakening politically for me.

I’m yet to discover any form of theocracy that isn’t homophobic, that isn’t bigoted to the out group.

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

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

Dressing effectively is a kind of excellent manners.

I like when my freckles show or when I do shoots and they accentuate them. It’s such a compliment.

People say I’m too skinny, but if I gain a little weight, they say I look chubby. You can’t please everyone. As long as you’re happy, that’s all that matters.

It is not strange to me that persons of the fair sex should like, in all things about them, the handsomeness for which they find themselves most liked.

Satire is a sort of glass, wherein beholders do generally discover everybody’s face but their own.

A cheerful look brings joy to the heart.

And I swear to you, she was so beautiful I had to keep reminding myself to blink.

It is really a hard life. Men will not be nice to you if you are not good-looking, and women will not be nice to you if you are.