Women are oppressed in the east, in the west, in the south, in the north. Women are oppressed inside, outside home, a woman is oppressed in religion, she is oppressed outside religion.

Those religions that are oppressive to women are also against democracy, human rights, and freedom of expression.

The fundamentalists are increasing. People, afraid to oppose those fundamentalists, shut their mouths. It is really very difficult to make people move against a sensitive issue like religion, which is the source of fundamentalism.

Nature says women are human beings, men have made religions to deny it. Nature says women are human beings, men cry out no!

I write against the religion because if women want to live like human beings, they will have to live outside the religion and Islamic law.

Koranic teaching still insists that the sun moves around the earth. How can we advance when they teach things like that?

Women are oppressed in the east, in the west, in the south, in the north. Women are oppressed inside, outside home, a woman is oppressed in religion, she is oppressed outside religion.

All I ever want is to return to either Bangladesh, my motherland, or India, my adopted home.

Among all the 'awards' that I have hitherto collected, I consider the title of 'patita' or 'fallen woman' to be the highest. This is an achievement of my long-struggling life as a writer and as a woman.

I am not scared of anyone. I will write and publish my books.

I believe in absolute freedom of expression. Everyone has a right to offend and be offended.

I have been writing poetry since 1975. My first poetry book was published in 1986.

I have had fatwas issued against me, some three in Bangladesh and another five in India. I will not be cowed by these threats and shall fight for my rights.

I have lectured at the U.N. and travelled widely, giving lectures on human rights and gender inequalities in universities. But this is a life I do not wish to live. I don't want to be a showcase, I want to be in a battlefield where I can stand beside the oppressed and the poor.

I studied in a medical college and qualified myself as a medical graduate.

I want to live in Kolkata; I don't want to live in Europe - I can't write there. I write in Bengali, and I need to be surrounded by the Bengali language and culture.

I was born in a middle class Muslim family, in a small town called Myonenningh in a northern part of Bangladesh in 1962. My father is a qualified physician; my mother is a housewife. I have two elder brothers and one younger sister. All of them received a liberal education in schools and colleges.

I was well acquainted with the Calcutta literary circle since I was 17, when I lived in Bangladesh and published and edited a little magazine called 'Sejuti,' for which young poets from both Bengals wrote. If you look at my life, there is no question of using anyone for anything. I have only got banned, blacklisted and banished.

In traditional societies, we have a long legacy of men controlling the body and mind of women. Such societies have valorised motherhood and fabricated concepts like chastity. Women have been the victims of these notions for thousands of years.

It is unfair to label me anti-Islam. I am an atheist and a secular humanist.

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

Sheikh Hasina's government is one of the best Bangladesh has ever had. She is taking action against fundamentalists. But even she refused to let me return. I don't think I can ever return home.

The focus of my research is how secular movements originated in West Asian countries and subsequently changed to pan-Islamic movements. The role of Western countries in this aspect is also a part of the research.

When Bangladesh refused to renew my passport, I used U.N. travel documents. You can't disown your country.

When I write, I don't allow the fear of consequences to interfere with the writing process. I have in the past paid for my commitment to the truth and the way I live my life. I am prepared to pay more if I have to.

It is too maddening. I've got to fly off, right now, to some devilish navy yard, three hours in a seasick steamer, and after being heartily sick, I'll have to speak three times, and then I'll be sick coming home. Still, who would not be sick for England?

Sitting at home the way I do, I'd just love the hear from people. It'd be a great help in passing the time.

Most fathers don't see the war within the daughter, her struggles with conflicting images of the idealized and flawed father, her temptation both to retreat to Daddy's lap and protection and to push out of his embrace to that of beau and the world beyond home.

I was stuck at home in bed with me and got more and more involved with the Internet. I used it to keep in contact with friends and to make sure I was up to date with everything that was going on in the world.

I'm going to buy some green bananas because by the time I get home they'll be ripe.

Removing substantial fuel loads from our forests helps prevent catastrophic fire and better protects species, watersheds and neighboring communities that call them home.

I'm looking forward to providing the men of Seattle with an evening where they can kick back, light up a cigar and enjoy a night to themselves. Women, we can't technically keep you out, but please stay at home.

I listen to the phone-ins on the way home and I know how the fans feel.

I'm a 7 o'clock act. My people want to go to a show, a dinner and then go home and go to bed.

The average husband enjoys the total effect of his home but is usually unable to contribute any of the details of work and organisation that make it enjoyable.

To my mind, the most important aspect of the Nobel Awards is that they bring home to the masses of the peoples of all nations, a realization of their common interests. They carry to those who have no direct contact with science the international spirit.

I think a good MP is someone who cares for their community and becomes their champion, which is why I will make my home in any seat I am lucky enough to be selected for. Looks play no part in the equation, what matters is your ideas and connecting them to the electorate.

We in this Congress have a choice. The American people have a right to exercise a choice on this issue, as to whether our men and women will continue to fight and die in a war based on deception and fantasy, or to start bringing the troops home.

American and Israel share a special bond. Our relationship is unique among all nations. Like America, Israel is a strong democracy, a symbol of freedom, and an oasis of liberty, a home to the oppressed and persecuted.

I'd get 3-4 cheap home runs every year. You know, little 'wood shots' down either line. They would be pop flies in any other park. But, goodness me, they didn't count the number of long outs!

Your home should be your home. People shouldn't be allowed to use whatever crazy lenses they use to catch you waking up in the morning.

He went, ever on the move, with the slow, shuffling step of wandering beggars who are nowhere at home.

At home in Paris I take a milk bath two times a week, but here on the road it is more difficult. I miss them.

When I am home for like a two-year stretch, I get antsy, because I want to work.

We need to work together, on a bipartisan basis, to create new jobs, increase job training, enact real and substantive middle class tax relief, and reward companies that create jobs at home.

And when you see it the first time you put the film together, the roughest cut, is when you want to go home and open up your veins and get in a warm tub and just go away. And then it gradually, maybe, works its way back, somewhere toward that spot you were at before.

You should never meet your heroes. Paul Newman... I was so excited about meeting him, but he turned up in shell suit bottoms, slippers, and a jumper. He was just so worn out and old, he wanted to go home.

You have to understand the tone of the movie, because if it's supposed to be funny, it can be funny violent like the Home Alone stuff, but you have to really understand the tone of what you're doing and make the action work for that and for the character.

The mare set off for home with the speed of a swallow, and going as smoothly and silently. I never had dreamed of such a motion, fluent and graceful, and ambient, soft as the breeze flitting over the flowers, but swift as the summer lightening.