Atheism is not a religion. One of the things, in fact, that atheism lacks are the kinds of rituals that religion does provide and I would be the first to say that.

The forgetting of the history of marginalized groups is both a cause and effect of their marginalization.

Americans are in serious intellectual trouble - in danger of losing our hard-won cultural capital to a virulent mixture of anti-intellectualism, anti-rationalism and low expectations.

The government should not be in the business of funneling money for social services through any faith-based organization

We do want our fellow citizens to respect our deeply held conviction that the absence of an afterlife lends a greater, not a lesser, moral importance to our actions on earth.

one of the great weaknesses of the women's rights movement over the past two hundred years has been the tendency of its history to disappear, so that it must be resurrected for each new generation.

Real-life discussions involve a great many bores and boors who have never learned that the art of conversation demands listening as well as talking.

Whether you are religious or nonreligious, may you find solace in the knowledge that the suffering is ours, but that those we love suffer no more.

The biggest religious wars and persecutions in history occur when religions, each claiming their own absolute truths, come into conflict.

At its heart, all intellectual and emotional life is a conversation, and the conversation begins at birth.

I feel Jewish in the sense of culturally Jewish, I suppose the way Bernie Sanders feels Jewish, but not Jewish in a religious sense.

caring is not abstract. The circle of ecological compassion we feel is enlarged by direct experience of the living world, and shrunken by its lack.

Religion imprisons God. By its own accord, if we are made in the image and likeness of God, then His condemnation of the sinner is an act of hypocrisy. I believe God to be greater than that.

Embrace tomfoolery as if it were a rich relative on his deathbed.

Accept life, take it as it is? Stupid. The means of doing otherwise? Far from our having to take it, it is life that possesses us and on occasion shuts our mouths.

I'm not an upfront person. Being upfront is not my forte. I'm quite happy to stay in the back there with the drums, where I belong.

I drew my strength from fear. Fear of losing. I don't remember the games I won, only the games I lost.

An Internet rumor claims that John Kerry had an affair with a young woman. When asked if this was similar to the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal, a spokesman said 'Close, but no cigar.'

There is no need for nuclear. The world can be powered by wind, water and sun alone.

I've always been a fan of or desired to or responded to variety. I like variety in life, so variety in work is a must.

Art doesn't come in measured quantities: it's got to be too much or it's not enough.