Theology is ignorance with wings.

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.

At thirty either you are perfect or nothing.

History shows: Whenever people try to pull you down, you will reach peaks of success. You just need the ability to ignore.

the teenage zone: the stage when an adolescent's brain synapses quit firing while the rest of their body races toward adulthood.

As I've gotten older, I've really wanted to find more balance and calm.

The superfluities of a rich nation furnish a better object of trade than the necessities of a poor one. It is the interest of the commercial world that wealth should be found everywhere.

Only optimists commit suicide, optimists who no longer succeed at being optimists. The others, having no reason to live, why would they have any to die?

The overall strength of Chinese culture and its international influence is not commensurate with China's international status. The international culture of the West is strong while we are weak.

I want to put strongly and completely all that is necessary, for things weakly said might as well not be said at all.

Your son went into your kitchen and took a kitchen knife.

Life's too slippery for books, Clarice; anger appears as lust, lupus presents as hives.