Religion is not the belief there is a god. Religion is the belief god tells you what 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.

We were made to be distracted by life, by story.

The ground had opened up and spit out hell, Nell thought, and the detritus was Shiloh.

Consciousness, like a complex system of software, has thousands of levels of nested, self-accessing subroutines

A farmer once told me one of the greatest luxuries of his life was to wake up early only to go back to sleep again.

You shall not, for the sake of one individual, change the meaning of principle and integrity.

We're all where we come from. We all have our roots.

I never base characters on real people - you can get into so much trouble that way!

This woman did not fly to extremes; she lived there.

I'm just happy that a couple folks still know my name, and that I'm still able to sell out venues when I perform live.

But if you really love to write and you really love to tell stories and you really love to draw, you just have to keep doing it no matter what anybody says.