There is no polite way to suggest to someone that they have devoted their life to a folly.

The secret of happiness is: Find something more important than you are and dedicate your life to it.

The idea that God is a worthy recipient of our gratitude for the blessings of life but should not be held accountable for the disasters is a transparently disingenuous innovation of the theologians.

Life itself is just a thin coat of paint on the planet, and we hold the paintbrush.

There’s simply no polite way to tell people they’ve dedicated their lives to an illusion.

The chief trick to making good mistakes is not to hide them-especially not from yourself.

What you can imagine depends on what you know.

There are no forces on this planet more dangerous to all of us than the fanaticisms of fundamentalism.

There may be things that are completely unknowable to us, so we must be careful not to treat the limits of our knowledge as sure guides to the limit of what there is.

A child raised on a desert island, alone, without social interaction, without language, and thus lacking empathy, is still a sentient being.

No matter how smart you are, you're smarter if you take the easy ways when they are available.

How do you manage it, she said, at your age? I told her I'd been saving up for her all my life.

I could sooner reconcile all Europe than two women.

We think we know people. We think that what we see is all there is. We rarely ask ourselves what goes on behind the curtain. We jump to conclusions. And we take everything very personally.

I will admit, it's so intoxicating working with Steve Carrell. Creatively and professionally.

I was watching something the other day which started out with five guys walking towards you and one woman, and there you go-it's still being dominated by the male society.

The only wounds that define us are the wounds of Jesus Christ.

Also, I gained lots of weight between ages 18-20 because I was drinking alcohol at night. Alcohol has lots of calories and that does not help.

You know, freedom is a very popular idea, and young people love it, and they're open to ideas. And they like principled answers to our problems.

The proper way to make policy decisions under our Constitution in America is for the people to do so through the democratic process.

You have to love what you do to the point that you can't imagine doing anything else with your life.