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.

You normally have to be bashed about a bit by life to see the point of daffodils, sunsets and uneventful nice days.

According to Montaigne, it was the oppressive notion that we had complete mental control over our bodies, and the horror of departing from this portrait of normality, that had left the man unable to perform sexually.

One of love's greatest drawbacks is that, for a while at least, it is in danger of making us happy.

The secular world is full of holes. We have secularized badly.

My writing always came out of a very personal place, out of an attempt to stay sane.

People only get really interesting when they start to rattle the bars of their cages.