Faith does not offer a strong link between our beliefs and actual states of the world.

The problem with religion, because it's been sheltered from criticism, is that it allows people to believe en masse what only idiots or lunatics could believe in isolation.

Either God can do nothing to stop catastrophes like this, or he doesn't care to, or he doesn't exist. God is either impotent, evil, or imaginary. Take your pick, and choose wisely.

A puppet is free as long as he loves his strings.

We have a choice. We have two options as human beings. We have a choice between conversation and war. That's it. Conversation and violence. And faith is a conversation stopper.

How we pay attention to the present moment...determin es the character of our experience and...the quality of our lives.

You can do what you decide to do — but you cannot decide what you will decide to do.

How can we be “free” as conscious agents if everything that we consciously intend is caused by events in our brain that we do not intend and of which we are entirely unaware? We can’t.

You don't get anything worth getting, by pretending to know things you don't know.

Jesus Christ—who, as it turns out, was born of a virgin, cheated death, and rose bodily into the heavens—can now be eaten in the form of a cracker

The position of the Muslim community in the face of all provocations seems to be: Islam is a religion of peace, and if you say that it isn't, we will kill you.

I wouldn't even dare read the Torah, let alone attempt a witty observation on the Torah.

Some say silence is golden, I choose noise!

Donald Trump has a great campaign slogan: 'A complex world demands complex hair.'

I should like to bury something precious in every place where I've been happy and then, when I'm old and ugly and miserable, I could come back and dig it up and remember.

At a certain depth all bosoms communicate, all hearts are one.

It's so damn hard to write a great historical mystery based on fact. It's not for lack of trying.

Knowledge is a comfortable and necessary retreat and shelter for us in an advanced age; and if we do not plant it while young, it will give us no shade when we grow old.

When I sleep every night, what am I called or not called? And when I wake, who am I if I was not I while I slept?

As a director, I really wanted to learn and I needed to get away from my own stuff to figure out how to just do things and work with good people.

Any of us can achieve virtue, if by virtue we merely mean the avoidance of the vices that do not attract us.