I leave it to the faithful to burn each other's churches and mosques and synagogues, which they can be always relied upon to do

If religious instruction were not allowed until the child had attained the age of reason, we would be living in a quite different world.

Islamophobia: a word created by fascists, and used by cowards, to manipulate morons.

Religion is poison because it asks us to give up our most precious faculty, which is that of reason, and to believe things without evidence. It then asks us to respect this, which it calls faith.

Never be a spectator of unfairness or stupidity. Seek out argument and disputation for their own sake; the grave will supply plenty of time for silence.

Human beings are pattern-seeking animals who will prefer even a bad theory or a conspiracy theory to no theory at all.

I learned that very often the most intolerant and narrow-minded people are the ones who congratulate themselves on their tolerance and open-mindedness.

High moral character is not a precondition for great moral accomplishments.

What can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.

Why do humans exist? A major part of the answer: because Pikaia Gracilens survived the Burgess decimation.

The only real radicalism in our time will come as it always has—from people who insist on thinking for themselves and who reject party-mindedness.

Photography promises an enhanced mastery of nature, but photography also threatens conflagration and anarchy.

When someone who's always been in your life is gone, it's a stunning adjustment of your own identity.

I can't bear to hear a woman talk baby talk.

His letters ... have been like fine cold water when you are terribly thirsty.

As long as I was in Washington I never met anybody that I thought was good enough, who knew enough, or who loved enough to make sexual decisions for anybody else.

Fighting cancer is my mission right now. The research and development of finding cures for this nasty disease is my passion.

I feel that the social revolution of the sixties is like a revolving door that came our way, and then left. It's back again.

The earth doesn't have a housekeeper to do the dusting. And the dust that falls on it every day remains there. Everything that's come down to us from the past has been conserved by dust.

The novel's not organized like a screenplay. If you shot the novel, you'd have a twelve-hour movie.

Animation can explain whatever the mind of man can conceive.