It is time that we admitted that faith is nothing more than the license religious people give one another to keep believing when reasons fail.

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.

Regrets are about decisions that you know you should have done different.

Dont talk to the crazy kids. I longed to shout back that we weren't crazy. I'd mistaken her kid for a ghost, that's all.

I'd always had a guilty preference for fiction. Since I seemed now to be living fiction, this proved to have been an entirely reasonable choice.

To apologize is to lay the foundation for a future offense.

I grew up in Marin County north of San Francisco, and in the 1950s and '60s it was a natural paradise.

Right education should help the student, not only to develop his capacities, but to understand his own highest interest.

All human stories are interesting. You don't put a kid in a show because you need a device. They have a story, too.

Stocks are a safe bet, but only if you stay invested long enough to ride out the . that squares with the facts, and with the historical record

Great women and men are always more anxious to serve than to have dominion.

Read, read read. Read everything.