When you look at the Moon, you think, ‘I’m really small. What are my problems?’ It sets things into perspective. We should all look at the Moon a bit more often.

For paranoia about 'what other people think' : remember that only some hate, a very few love - and almost all just don't care.

Kant and Hegel are interesting thinkers. But I am happy to insist that they are also terrible writers.

According to one influential wing of modern secular society there are few more disreputable fates than to end up being 'like everyone else' for 'everyone else' is a category that comprises the mediocre and the conformist, the boring and the suburban. The goal of all right-thinking people should be to mark themselves off from the crowd and 'stand out' in whatever way their talents allow.

Serious journalists often imagine society is adrift because people don't know certain things. Yet often, they know but just don't care. So the task of serious journalism isn't just to lay out truths. It is to make vital truths compelling to a big audience.

The genius of religions is that they structure the inner life.

We wanted to test each other's capacity for survival: only if we had tried in vain to destroy one another would we know we were safe.