John Brunner Quotes

Extremism means borders beyond which life ends, and a passion for extremism, in art and in politics, is a veiled longing for death.

You can't judge Islam by those people any more than you can judge Christians by abortion clinic bombers or white separatists. Love turn to hate at the fringes of any belief system.

Extremism is so easy. You've got your position, and that's it. It doesn't take much thought. And when you go far enough to the right you meet the same idiots coming around from the left.

As someone who grew up between two cultures, I have been fascinated with the question of why men and women with similar backgrounds to mine were drawn towards radical messages of hate and violence.

Radicalism and extremism, while they are dangers, they exist in every society on some level.

The fanatic is dangerous.

In Muslim societies, a person who has been manipulated unto believing in extremist violence or terrorism often seeks the permission of his mother before he may join a militant jihad and educated women as a rule, tend to withhold their blessings from such things.

I take a very simple view that a violent extremist at some point previously been an extremist, and by definition is an extremist, so you do need to look at that non-violent extremism.

No one who isn't an extremist can understand the mind of an extremist.

We are in a world that is quite extremist and extremism makes more noise. Normality does not sell.

The suicide-bombing community is not absolutely 100 percent religious, but it is pretty nearly 100 percent religious.

All extremists derive from one pool. This extreme mind-set is nurtured by religious rhetoric that needs to be reformed.

When at the CIA, I was fond of saying that many jihadis join the movement for the same reasons that young Americans join the Crips and the Bloods: youthful alienation, the need to belong to something greater than self, the search for meaningful identity. But it also matters what gang you join.

One of the things you hear about when studying the nature of fanaticism is that a lot of the time, people don't start as fanatics. They shift and evolve into that state. That's a process, a systematic process of losing your identity and sense of self.

I see no difference between a violent Islamist and a far-Right terrorist.

I'm interested in what motivates individuals to participate in atrocious acts to support their ideological identification.

Do you call the people in Los Angeles in the nineties - do you call them rebels or opposition ? They are rebels. They are not rebels even, they are beheading. This opposition, opposing country or government, by beheading ? By barbecuing heads ? By eating the hearts of your victim ? Is that opposition ? What do you call the people who attacked the two towers on the 11th of September ? Opposition ? Even if they're not Americans, I know this, but some of them I think have nationality - I think one of them has American nationality. Do you call him opposition or terrorist ?

Extremists are not going to disappear.

Martyrs, martyrs, martyrs,... we want a million martyrs to march on Jerusalem.

The enemy is not fundamentalism; it is intolerance. In this case, the intolerance is perverse since it masquerades under the "liberal" rhetoric of "equal time." But mistake it not.

We have not confronted forcefully enough the intolerance, sectarianism, and hopelessness that feeds violent extremism in too many parts of the globe.

There's nothing heroic about suicide bombers. They're mostly just dumb, brainwashed kids, stoned out of their minds.

One outcome is almost certain. Extremism stands to benefit enormously from an uncalculated adventure in Iraq.

I think what speaks loudest and what speaks to your point is the blood that's spilling from Australia, to now California. I mean, how much blood has to be spilled until we recognize inside of a Muslim community that with do have an ideological problem?

The United States of America is engaged in a war against an extremist group of folks.