"I was promised I would spend eternity in Paradise, being fed honeyed cakes by 67 virgins in a tree-lined garden, if only I would fly the airplane into one of the Twin Towers. But instead, I am fed the boiling feces of traitors by malicious, laughing Ifrit. Is this to be my reward for destroying the enemies of my faith?"
Mohammed Atta, in Hell, via the Onion

"There was a tumultuous conflagration of burning steel and fuel at our gates, and from it stepped forth these hijackers, the blessed name of the Lord already turning to molten brass on their accursed lips. Indeed, I do not know what they were expecting, but they certainly didn't seem prepared to be skewered from eye socket to bunghole and then placed on a spit so that their flesh could be roasted by the searing gale of flatus which issues forth from the haunches of Asmoday. Which is strange when you consider the evil with which they ended their lives and those of so many others."
Iblis The Thrice-Damned, cacodemon in Hell, via the Onion

"As the community of artists sifts through this brilliant horror and the retaliatory vengeance, we will see a distinct change in the cultural product of our times."
Evan Levy

"Painting is not done to decorate apartments. It is an instrument of war against brutality and darkness."
Pablo Picasso

"For the past several days, according to scores of refugees who came up the Old Kabul Road yesterday seeking a safe haven on territory held by the opposition Northern Alliance, mayhem has been visited on the Tajik quarter of the Afghan capital. Taliban militias have been staging nighttime raids on the district's homes, dragging the menfolk away to fight for them on the frontline, to get ready to defend the city against US attacks, to be thrown into jail, or to be held as hostages and perhaps human shields."
Ian Traynor

"Of the hundreds of Afghans I spoke with no one supports the Taleban, the fundamentalist faction that controls Afghanistan by violence, threats and terror. No one supports Osama bin Laden or his non-Afghan followers who exploit Afghan soil and bring world condemnation and sanctions to a country in dire need of humanitarian assistance."
Anne Brodsky

"In the United States we now have our own experience of terror and fear, but I cannot forget the voices of the Afghan women, children and men as they told me of 23 years under war and violence and now fundamentalist oppression - of the massacres; the destruction of their homes; the kidnapping, torture and disappearance of their husbands and fathers and brothers; the rapes and forced marriages of their young daughters; the acts of daily terror and violence to enforce edicts that keep women under house arrest - unable to go to school, work, be seen or heard in public."
Anne Brodsky

"Along with most Muslims, I feel it a duty to make clear that such orchestrated acts of incomprehensible carnage have nothing to do with the beliefs of most Muslims. The Koran specifically declares: 'If anyone murders an (innocent) person, it will be as if he has murdered the whole of humanity. And if anyone saves a person it will be as if he has saved the whole of humanity.' The Koran that our young people learn is full of stories and lessons from the history of humanity as a whole. The Gospels and the Torah are referred to; Jesus and Abraham are mentioned. In fact there is more mention in the Koran of the prophet Moses than of any other. It acknowledges the coexistence of other faiths, and in doing so acknowledges that other cultures can live together in peace. 'There is no compulsion in religion,' it states, meaning that people should not be compelled to change their faith. Elsewhere it states, 'To you, your religion; to me mine.' Respect for religious values and justice is at the Koran's core."
Yusaf Islam (formerly Cat Stevens)

"Now that America is warring on terrorism, it is black people, it is us, who can remind America that we know terrorism well. We know that dangerous rhetoric can lead to acts of lunacy that kill the innocent. We know that the surest defense against terrorism is the affirmation of American basic values. Military might must be accompanied by moral force."
Vernon Jordan