You almost never get the pleasure of seeing that you won the argument in real time. People just don't like to publicly change their minds. They change their minds in private.

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.

It is easy to accept a deal, but hard to refuse it.

When we turn 21, we begin to regret the sins we did not committed...

You were born to journey in the direction of your purpose. Anything that halts your progress is contrary to your design.

You are not your story. They are not your story about them. The world is not your story about the world.

It was only when I found myself writing things I didn't realise I knew that I said, 'I'm a writer now.'

The whole art of war consists in getting at what is on the other side of the hill.

[When I happen to] read interviews where people are such pros and they come out looking so good, [it comes off as] a little smug or something.

The solar system is off center and consequently man is too.

In my case I've never not been political, though religion tended to overshadow it in my acid days.

In a great gasp, puts her head in her hands again and cries as if her throat were a cave, as if the howling winds came from her belly, she cries like a storm that will never end.