In the year 2006, a person can have sufficient intellectual and material resources to build a nuclear bomb and still believe that he will get seventy-two virgins in Paradise.

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.

Pages and pages and pages with words all over the pages. My goodness, what fun. What fun to write whatever words occur.

This generation seems to see children as a financial burden and responsibility to be avoided.

Discipline, not the Muse, results in productivity. If you write only when she beckons, your writing is not yours at all.

I don't want to be famous for being famous.

We dance with women in groups, but it is very rare that you have a partner that is a woman. The dance world is very macho - woman, boy, always couples, and it's very standardized.

I'm not as good as I want to be, But I'm twice as good as you think I am.

We depend on the Supreme Court to uphold the integrity of our government.

Love trumps hate. Courage loves fear. Right always trumps wrong.

I used to go to school in Manhattan with a bunch of the City Kids.

All the stream that's roaring by Came out of a needle's eye.