Between Shame And Shamelessness Lies The Axis

But Love Is What We Want, Not Freedom. Who Then Is The Unluckier Man? The Beloved, Who Is Given His Heart's Desire And Must For Ever After Fear Its Loss, Or The Free Man, With His Unlooked-for Liberty, Naked And Alone Between The Captive Armies Of The Earth?

If A Birth Is The Fall-out From The Explosion Caused By The Union Of Two Unstable Elements, Then Perhaps A Half-life Is All We Can Expect.

The Question I'm Always Asking Myself Is: Are We Masters Or Victims? Do We Make History, Or Does History Make Us? Do We Shape The World, Or Are We Just Shaped By It? The Question Of Do We Have Agency In Our Lives Or Whether We Are Just Passive Victims Of Events Is, I Think, A Great Question, And One That I Have Always Tried To Ask.

I Reluctantly Concluded That There Was No Way For Me To Help Bring Into Being The Muslim Culture I'd Dreamed Of, The Progressive, Irreverent, Skeptical, Argumentative, Playful And Unafraid Culture Which Is What I've Always Understood As Freedom.... Actually Existing Islam ... Which Makes Literalism A Weapon And Redescription A Crime, Will Never Let The Likes Of Me In.

I Determined To Make My Peace With Islam, Even At The Cost Of My Pride. Those Who Were Surprised And Displeased By What I Did Perhaps Failed To See That ... I Wanted To Make Peace Between The Warring Halves Of The World, Which Were Also The Warring Halves Of My Soul.