Orthodoxy cannot afford to put out the fires of hell.

Secularism is a religion, a religion that is understood. It has no mysteries, no mumblings, no priests, no ceremonies, no falsehoods, no miracles, and no persecutions.

Religion can never reform mankind because religion is slavery.

Happiness is not a reward - it is a consequence. Suffering is not a punishment - it is a result.

Do you not know that every religion in the world has declared every other religion a fraud? Yes, we all know it. That is the time all religions tell the truth - each of the other.

Superstition is, always has been, and forever will be, the foe of progress, the enemy of education and the assassin of freedom.

The myth of hell represents all the meanness, all the revenge, all the selfishness, all the cruelty, all the hatred, all the infamy of which the heart of man is capable.

Happiness is the only good. The time to be happy is now. The place to be happy is here. The way to be happy is to make others so.

Give to every human being every right that you claim for yourself.

The intellectual advancement of man depends on how often he can exchange an old superstition for a new truth.

There can be but little liberty on earth while men worship a tyrant in heaven.

...in the business of writing what one accumulates is not expertise but uncertainties. Which is but another name for craft.

The goal that proves success is to become God’s representative

Wait and wait. Most people's lives are spent waiting.

I am still cautiously hopeful about the potential of the Internet. But it seems that the greatest revolution in communication has been hijacked by commercial values.

There is nothing glamorous about death.

A comedian sees the world bent. I'm tangent to the circle.

The Church is the Church only when it exists for others.

The hopes of the Republic cannot forever tolerate either undeserved poverty or self-serving wealth.

Most writers seem to prefer the morning, or they feel at their best in the morning. Ideas are popping into your head while you're in the shower. And that's true for me, as well.

I don't like seeing the stuff that's not polished. It's harder for me to step away from it and watch that.