Cat Stevens Quotes

If I had simply wanted to trade on an insult to Islam, I could have done it in a sentence rather than writing a 250,000-word novel, a work of fiction.

We've seen the uproars around the world concerning cartoons depicting the prophet Mohammad. Anyone who does not think comic strips are relevant never had a fatwa put on him/her for drawing a picture.

Over the years, my marks on paper have landed me in all sorts of courts and controversies - I have been comprehensively labelled; anti-this and anti-that, anti-social, anti-football, anti-woman, anti-gay, anti-Semitic, anti-science, anti-republican, anti-American, anti-Australian - to recall just an armful of the antis.

Rushdie is a hostage.

My friend, the Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh, was murdered in 2004 for having been insufficiently reverent toward Islam.

If Woody Allen were a Muslim, he'd be dead by now.

We are now in the 21st century: all books, including the Koran, should be fair game for flushing down the toilet without fear of violent reprisal.

Mr. Greene. Some parts of your book are certain to offend some Catholics, but you should pay no attention to that.

You can count on violence if any illustration of the Prophet is published. It will cause riots, I predict, from Indonesia to Nigeria.

'The Satanic Verses' was denied the ordinary life of a novel. It became something smaller and uglier: an insult.

'Charlie Hebdo' had been nondenominational in its satire, sticking its finger into the sensitivities of Jews and Christians, too - but only Muslims responded with threats and acts of terrorism.

Rohinton Mistry's celebrated novel 'Such a Long Journey' was pulled off the syllabus of Mumbai University because local extremists objected to its content.

It's OK to burn a Bible, that's OK. OK to burn a flag, OK, that's all right. But just, you know, for heaven's sake, don't say anything that might offend someone of the Islamic religion.

Censorship is a strange situation. There was times when people would burn books because they didn't like what people were doing.

Being offended by freedom of speech should never be regarded as a justification for violence.

I just think political correctness is crap.

The philosopher has never killed any priests, whereas the priest has killed a great many philosophers.

There is a place in this world for satire, but there is a time when satire ends and intolerance and bigotry towards religious beliefs of others begins.

What progress we are making. In the Middle Ages they would have burned me. Now they are content with burning my books.

We've seen violent responses to 'Satanic Verses.' We've seen violent responses to the cartoons depicting the Prophet Mohammed in an evil way.

We're the guys who, if someone says you really shouldn't do an episode making fun of Scientologists, we say, 'Whatever.' Someone says, 'They might come try to burn your house down,' we say, 'We'll just get another one.'

Religion and political cartoons, as you may have heard, make a difficult couple, ever since that day of 2005, when a bunch of cartoonists in Denmark drew cartoons that had repercussions all over the world - demonstrations, fatwa, they provoked violence. People died in the violence.

I believe very much that the most damning thing you can say about Muslims is that you're afraid to say anything because they'll hurt you.

Religious fundamentalists in Bangladesh have always argued for a ban on my books.

Anyone who believes in tolerance and freedom will support Denmark and publish all 12 cartoons.