That religion may have served some necessary function for us in the past does not preclude the possibility that it is now the greatest impediment to our building a global civilization.

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.

Pure and complete sorrow is as impossible as pure and complete joy.

It doesn't hurt. Nothing hurts except the small smiles and blushes that flash across the room like tiny sparrows.

If you handle truth carelessly, it will cut your fingers.

I may have got (Paul) Waner out, but I never fooled him.

We have to devise means of making known the facts in such a way as to touch the imagination of the world

I wish that Christmas may be happy and heavenly, and the holidays glow with the gifts of the inner life that God will give to each one.

Positive minds produce positive lives. Negative minds produce negative lives. Positive thoughts are always full of faith and hope. Negative thoughts are always full of fear and doubt.

The endeavor to keep alive any hoary establishment beyond its natural date is often pernicious and always useless.

Nobody cooks using just one ingredient. Why would you write using just one flavor of story?

Maybe it's just L.A., but [high school girls] look like men, like they would have kids and s - t.