Matt Haig Quotes

Once you're labeled as mentally ill, and that's in your medical notes, then anything you say can be discounted as an artefact of your mental illness.

Does every Muslim commit terror? Of course not.

The worst thing to call somebody is crazy. It's dismissive.

I figure if people don't want to make the distinction between a Muslim and a terrorist, then why should I make a distinction between good scared white people and racists?

I don't portray a terrorist. The American fans label me a terrorist. It doesn't matter what I claim to be: in their eyes, I am whatever they say I am despite the fact that I'm not committing any 'acts of terror.' I ask you, how am I portraying a terrorist? Because I look like a Muslim?

The trouble is that people are all too ready to jump to conclusions about anybody who they think looks a bit strange. They think you must be mentally subnormal.

We want to blame people who have brain disorders - they should somehow be able to magically rise above it. It's a profound misconception.

The blind won't admit that I have eyes in my head, and the deaf say that I'm dumb.

Usually in films, when Muslims pray, it's either before or after they've blown something up.

I'm amazed by the misconceptions about Muslim women and the Arab world that I hear, and that really does hurt me.

People don't know. People are ignorant. They feel that if you stutter, then you're slow or whatnot.

All we talk about is 'Islamic terrorism.' If the two words are associated for long enough it's obviously going to have an effect on how people think about Muslims.

I think putting labels on people is just an easy way of marketing something you don't understand.

Some people say I'm unique, that there aren't other people with schizophrenia like me. Well, there are people like me out there, but the stigma is so great that they don't come forward.

Definitely in the West, we're all cast as the same now. Whether you're Indian, Pakistani, Arab, Iranian, Afghan or whatever, you just get thrown into this category. And nine times out of 10, you're depicted as bad.

I just feel as though it's become a situation where people have manifested this caricature of who I am, and they act as if there's no real person inside of it.

I am not as crazy as people think.

Not every Muslim is out to get us.

Not everything I do is gossip or bedroom. To the contrary, I think that's just an easy label to dismiss me and to dismiss the new medium.

Well if done a lot of hard work to try and get people to act rationally, the fact that weve had 15 deviant Muslims, plus 5 or 8 others that got away does not mean that all Muslims are deviant or extremists.

I think I underestimated the way people bracket you.

Stereotypes happen. I try not to embrace them or avoid them.

At times one feels that what is being said in the West is that the fact that you are a Muslim predisposes you to this blind, stupid terrorism.

I don't like stereotypes - no kind of stereotypes.

I mean people just have a way of - y'know they'll review your record in two sentences and put you in this little stupid box that you don't want to be in.