Catering to populist anger with extremist proposals that are certain to fail is not a viable strategy for political success.

It's tragic that extremists co-opt the notion of God, and that hipsters and artists reject spirituality out of hand. I don't have a fixed idea of God. But I feel that it's us - the messed-up, the half-crazy, the burning, the questing - that need God, a lot more than the goody-two-shoes do.

"Two years he walks the earth. No phone, no pool, no pets, no cigarettes. Ultimate freedom. An extremist. An aesthetic voyager whose home is the road. Escaped from Atlanta. Thou shalt not return, 'cause "the West is the best." And now after two rambling years comes the final and greatest adventure. The climactic battle to kill the false being within and victoriously conclude the spiritual pilgrimage. Ten days and nights of freight trains and hitchhiking bring him to the Great White North. No longer to be poisoned by civilization he flees, and walks alone upon the land to become lost in the wild.

Look I eat really well and I work out but I also indulge when I want to. I don't starve myself in an extremist way. You're not taking away my coffee or my dairy or my glass of wine because I'd be devastated.

To a considerable extent we are faced by a technology arms race with terrorists. The communications revolution has made it easier for terrorist groups to reach out to vulnerable individuals with their violent extremist ideology and propaganda. It has also facilitated fundraising recruitment and training.

I am looking for suggestions on what we can do about extremists within our own society. They cannot be ignored.

One thing that I feel very very strongly is that we talk about Islamic countries Islamic people Islamic leaders as either moderates or extremists. It's almost like there are only two categories of Muslims. And actually that doesn't show respect. It shows lack of understanding of the diversity of Muslim thought.

You're always going to have extremists in every religion.

We have to understand how the extremists got the way they are. Without that kind of understanding we'd never really get to know them. I put in nothing about their childhoods. But what I have put in is stuff about the weird symbiotic relationship between us and them.

I would remind you that extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice! And let me remind you also that moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue.

But 85 percent of the mosques have extremist leadership in this country. Most Muslims the overwhelming majority of Muslims are loyal Americans.

A lot of people because of my contempt for the false consolations of religion think of me as a symbolic public opponent of that in extremis. And sometimes that makes me feel a bit alarmed to be the repository of other people's hope.

Given my last position that I was the first U.S attorney post 9/11 in New Jersey I understand acutely the pain and sorrow and upset of the family members who lost loved ones that day at the hands of radical Muslim extremists. And their sensitivities and concerns have to be taken into account.

Most women are pragmatists who have allowed extremists on the left and right to manipulate the family issue for their own purposes.

There are a lot of Christian fundamentalists there are a lot of Muslim extremists. Every religion - Mormonism - has something way on the side that's completely using the religion as some weird backbone for their twisted faith. It has nothing to do with their religion.

I find increasingly that the more extreme are the things going on in your life the more cultural reference points fail you. More mythical reference points actually help and you realise that's what myths are for. It's for human beings to process their experience in extremis.

Liberals in Congress have spent the past three decades pandering to environmental extremists. The policies they have put in place are in large part responsible for the energy crunch we are seeing today. We have not built a refinery in this country for 30 years.

Let's not leave an educational vacuum to be filled by religious extremists who go to families who have no other option and offer meals housing and some form of education. If we are going to combat extremism then we must educate those very same children.

The message that President Obama delivered in his speech at Notre Dame was: morality is immoral. Pro-life is the extremist position not a moral position. Yet we should compromise and work to reduce abortions. Where's the compromise between life and death - and why work to reduce the number of them occurring if there's nothing wrong with them?

Extremists think 'communication' means agreeing with them.