Your ideal authors ought to pull you from the foundering of your previous existence, not smilingly guide you into a friendly and peaceable harbor.

If religious instruction were not allowed until the child had attained the age of reason, we would be living in a quite different world.

Islamophobia: a word created by fascists, and used by cowards, to manipulate morons.

Religion is poison because it asks us to give up our most precious faculty, which is that of reason, and to believe things without evidence. It then asks us to respect this, which it calls faith.

Never be a spectator of unfairness or stupidity. Seek out argument and disputation for their own sake; the grave will supply plenty of time for silence.

Human beings are pattern-seeking animals who will prefer even a bad theory or a conspiracy theory to no theory at all.

I learned that very often the most intolerant and narrow-minded people are the ones who congratulate themselves on their tolerance and open-mindedness.

High moral character is not a precondition for great moral accomplishments.

What can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.

Why do humans exist? A major part of the answer: because Pikaia Gracilens survived the Burgess decimation.

The only real radicalism in our time will come as it always has—from people who insist on thinking for themselves and who reject party-mindedness.

Fear hadn’t come to him yet. Pain hadn’t come where pain would come. There was only the feeling of having done something perfect at last—the taste of a drink from a cold, pure spring.

A bright man of conviction and action is a beacon to his country, but a flash light to the scurrying of inaction, ego, and insecurity of lesser men.

In college football, fans wallow in a culture of failure. Unless you root for Miami, you sadly wait for disaster to strike your team in a manner not seen outside of Fenway Park.

The heart of marriage is memories; and if the two of you happen to have the same ones and can savor your reruns, then your marriage is a gift from the gods.

I'm not interested in possible complexities. I regard song structure as a graph paper.

The best advice I can give to any young man or young woman upon graduation from school can be summed up in exactly eight words, and they are-be honest with yourself and tell the truth.

There are good people in the lobbying industry. Lobbyists can serve a very useful purpose.

I intimidate a lot of men, because I've done a lot. I'm established. I'm successful.

I want to play interesting women.

Faith makes the uplook good, the outlook bright, the inlook favorable, and the future glorious.