M. Ali Quotes

Weapons are less harmful than words.

Times change and we should change and grow, and yet be proud of our legacy.

Potency does not mean being unnecessarily aggressive; one has to be wise.

History is full of instances of people who challenged the mighty forces of evil and they were not only fighting a lonely battle but were left alone to die.

Real 'imaan' is faith in humanity, so those who deny goodness are kafirs.

I believe the minorities need to have a strategy of survival because needless aggression when you cannot change the situation does not help. Wisdom is more important than saving some cultural symbol.

Physical wounds heal, but those on the soul are difficult to heal.

Many people asked me to convert. I said my religious convictions remain. I am fighting the wrongs within my own community. And if I decide to convert I will lose the right to fight.

I am not taking away the historical legacy, but it should not become a burden.

Jihad is misused by fundamentalists. The Quranic meaning is not meant for war at all, in the sense of killing.

The individual cannot exist on his/her own and the collectivism should respect freedom of conscience. My struggle is about the freedom of thought.

I've always maintained terrorism passes through Pakistan, it doesn't evolve in Pakistan.

I think of Canada, first and foremost, in terms of space. The amount of space available is breathtaking.

I am grateful to my father for sending me to school, and that we moved from Somalia to Kenya, where I learned English.

All my life I have been a nomad.

Muslim leaders should ask themselves what exactly their relationship is to a political movement that encourages young men to kill and maim on religious grounds.

The West is duly terrified. But it should not be surprised.

No one in the American Enterprise imposes their beliefs. We clash, and I think that's what the West is all about.

Unlike the United Kingdom or the Commonwealth, the umma, or Muslim community, has no symbolic leader, let alone a formal one.

Every time you take a train, step into your car, walk into the shopping mall, go to the airport - every single time, something could happen. That's how terrorism works.

I would rather clean than beg.

If such a young nation as the U.S. could make it to superpower status, we could do it as well.

Every time I went on TV I got a threat.

My conscience is informed by reason. It's like Kant's categorical imperative: behave to others as you would wish they behaved to you.

Only when I smell the earth upon my face, will I ever be free, to fly from this place.

The Muslim Brotherhood can't even penetrate the Egyptian government.

I come from a middle class background. I have travelled a lot by trains and have lived in the world. It is a world I cannot get away from; I would not even want to.

'Love Aaj Kal' is not really a road movie, but it does involve some travel.

I have always tried to make profitable films because people's offices shut down if films fail, and I will do everything to avoid that.

Again, having - fortunately having never been in trouble. And eventually I found out that I was on a watch list.

The freedom that I wanted as a kid would - probably would not have been good for me and not in the way in which I wanted it.

I grew up in church. My mom's a minister, and my grandmother was an ordained minister. I was always very mindful of the presence of a greater being I call God.

Between the two [parents], it was a really unique upbringing, I think, especially for where I was from.

Getting to St. Mary's College was a big deal for me because that essentially led to me getting to go to NYU.

I didn't have the passion for athletics in that way, that there were other parts of me that felt under-served and that needed to be nurtured and needed my energy.

I played all four years [at St. Mary's College] with - at a certain point, basketball became the thing I was doing most, but it was really in my periphery.

It was really a focus on how to in some ways keep moving in this direction towards something that allowed me to express myself in a way that sports didn't.

How do I transform and be believable as Krogstad in "A Doll's House" or Sir Peter Teazle in "A School for Scandal".

I've personally been on the outside sometimes. But I was - I personally was never persecuted especially in the way in which sharing my own experiences.

In my time at St. Mary's College, drifting out of sports because it was something that began to feel really finite. And I could see that I didn't have the passion to sustain a career in sports.

I had read some books on the Baha'i Faith. I had read - I was looking into Buddhism and trying to understand sort of the agnostic approach, so there was just a bunch of stuff I was just looking at.

This is 2003, 2004. And then I started - after the Patriot Act, I would always get my financial packages in the mail and they would just be opened. And it was like, what is going on here?

It felt like it disrupted my rhythm in growing up. But I will say that I'm really grateful for [my mother's] own personal transition.

I do think that there are people who are able to connect with and empathize with anyone who is going through something difficult, just naturally. I don't think it's a world of effort for everyone.

I was always an outsider, always standing outside, observing and trying to figure things out. Which is exactly what you need to do as a writer, I suppose.

I started writing 'Brick Lane' when my children were two years and five months old. We were on holiday in the north of England when I was overtaken by a compulsion to start writing.

I don't want to get hung up on what 'people,' that nebulous mass, think about me. That's the way to unhappiness, I think.

I always try to create conflict and drama in my books; it's the engine of the novel.

People always want to identify a writer with their protagonist.

I wish I got a lie-in on Saturday mornings but I never do.