We were blood brothers, pals forever. He was my very best friend. Nobody else could see him. I now know he was just pretend.

If the Prodigal Son's a parable, and if Adam and Eve are metaphors, then maybe God is just figure of speech.

The very concept of sin comes from the Bible. Christianity offers to solve a problem of its own making! Would you be thankful to a person who cut you with a knife in order to sell you a bandage?

I am an atheist because there is no evidence for the existence of God. That should be all that needs to be said about it: no evidence, no belief.

Insanity is believing your hallucinations are real. Religion is believing that other peoples' hallucinations are real.

All you have to do is walk into any children's hospital and you know there is no God. Prayer doesn't make any difference. Those people pray for their beloved children to live and they die.

People are always asking, "What's the purpose of life?" That's easy. Relieve suffering. Create beauty. Make gardens.

If the answers to prayer are merely what God wills all along, then why pray?

I'm proud to be an atheist - it helps me stand for so much more and fall for so much less.

Faith is a cop-out. If the only way you can accept an assertion is by faith, then you are conceding that it can't be taken on its own merits. It is intellectual bankruptcy.

How happy can you be when you think every action and thought is being monitored by a judgmental ghost ?

What is Man? Man is a noisome bacillus whom Our Heavenly Father created because he was disappointed in the monkey.

There is scarcely any passion without struggle.

Blessings can be in disguise, so pay attention!

You don't know what pressure is until you play for $5 with only $2 in your pocket.

The winner's edge is not in a gifted birth, a high IQ, or in talent. The winner's edge is all in the attitude, not aptitude. Attitude is the criterion for success.

Laws are the sovereigns of sovereigns.

I look at American movies, the big muscles, and try to apply that to Chinese film-making.

Science is not metaphorical. Science is scientific.

Writing, for me, means humility. It’s a process that involves fear and doubt, especially if you’re writing honestly.

As for critics, one mediocre writer is more valuable than ten good critics. They are like haughty, barren spinsters lodged in a maternity ward.