I've proved to be as difficult to convert as I am to hypnotize.

One of the most repellent spectacles at election times is the pretense of piety on the part of people running for office.

For a lot of people, their first love is what they'll always remember. For me it's always been the first hate, and I think that hatred, though it provides often rather junky energy, is a terrific way of getting you out of bed in the morning and keeping you going.

There's been some research in cognitive science, I'm told, that discloses that there have always been perhaps 10 to 15 percent of people who are, as Pascal puts it, so made that they cannot believe. To us, when people talk about faith, it's white noise.

It's true that obscenity is a matter of taste and in the eye of the beholder.

The faithful believe that certain truths have been 'revealed.' The skeptics and secularists believe that truth is only to be sought by free inquiry and trial and error. Only one of those positions is dogmatic.

If god really wanted people to be free of [wicked thoughts], he should have taken more care to invent a different species.