Reason is nothing less than the guardian of love

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.

Creative expansion cannot happen without vision.

I cannot tell whether diamonds appeared in his eyes or mine as the shine of adoration became the icon one sees in history, a Byzantine sparkle, Medieval armor against all odds.

What matter it how far we go?" his scaly friend replied."There is another shore, you know, upon the other side.

He that sows Thorns, should never go barefoot.

I felt like there wasn't a political discourse. I felt like there was just one set of values, and any one set of values was wrong; that there should at least be room for conversation.

If a writer stops observing, he is finished.

Everyone is a genius at least once a year.

Having a baby is like a DUI from the universe.

My mother and father were both much more remarkable than any story of mine can make them. They seem to me just mythically wonderful.

If there is a witness to my little life,To my tiny throes and struggles,He sees a fool;And it is not fine for gods to menace fools.