Well, to the people who pray for me to not only have an agonising death, but then be reborn to have an agonising and horrible eternal life of torture, I say, 'Well, good on you. See you there.'

To terrify children with the image of hell... to consider women an inferior creation. Is that good for the world?

I vote and I do jury duty.

A faction willing to take the risks of making war on the ossified status quo in the Middle East can be described as many things, but not as conservative.

Millions of people die every day. Everyone's got to go sometime. I've came by this particular tumor honestly. If you smoke, which I did for many years very heavily with occasional interruption, and if you use alcohol, you make yourself a candidate for it in your sixties.

Trust is not the same as faith. A friend is someone you trust. Putting faith in anyone is a mistake.

Yes, I, well, when I write, as often as I can, I try to write as if I'm talking to people. It doesn't always work, and one shouldn't always try it, but I try and write as if I am talking, and trying to engage the reader in conversation.

I boldly assert, in fact I think I know, that a lot of friendships and connections absolutely depend upon a sort of shared language, or slang. Not necessarily designed to exclude others, this can establish a certain comity and, even after a long absence, re-establish it in a second.

The advice I've been giving to people all my life - that you may not be interested in the dialectic but the dialectic is interested in you; you can't give up politics, it won't give you up - was the advice I should have been taking myself.

All the time, I've felt that life is a wager and that I probably was getting more out of leading a bohemian existence as a writer than I would have if I didn't.

The amazing fact is that America is founded on a document. It's a work in progress. It can be tested by each generation.

It doesn't take much to make me angry.

I don't think it's possible to have a sense of tragedy without having a sense of humor.

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

Primate and elephant and even pig societies show considerable evidence of care for others, parent-child bonding, solidarity in the face of danger, and so on.

A good day is one where I can not just read a book, but write a review of it. Maybe today I'll be able to do that. I get for some reason somewhat stronger when the sun starts to go down. Dusk is a good time for me. I'm crepuscular.

The concept of loneliness and exile and self-sufficiency continually bucks me up.

The totalitarian, to me, is the enemy - the one that's absolute, the one that wants control over the inside of your head, not just your actions and your taxes.

The fact is: It's true what they say about the United States. It is a land of opportunity. It is too various to get bored with it.

I've had some dark nights of the soul, of course, but giving in to depression would be a sellout, a defeat.

Solidarity is an attitude of resistance, I suppose, or it should be.

Littera scripta manet - 'The written word will remain'. That's true, but it won't be that much comfort to me.

I'm not particularly a feminist, but if you get women off the animal cycle of reproduction and give them some say in how many children they'll have, immediately the floor will rise.

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