And the pleasures and rewards of the intellect are inseparable from angst, uncertainty, conflict and even despair.

Human society is inconceivable unless words are to some extent bonds.

Religion, it is true, still possesses the huge if cumbersome and unwieldy advantage of having come first.

[I]f you think that American imperialism and its globalised, capitalist form is the most dangerous thing in the world, that means you don't think the Islamic Republic of Iran or North Korea or the Taliban is as bad.

Many more people are poor and sick because of the life of MT: Even more will be poor and sick if her example is followed. She was a fanatic, a fundamentalist, and a fraud, and a church that officially protects those who violate the innocent has given us another clear sign of where it truly stands on moral and ethical questions.

The most educated person in the world now has to admit-- I shall not say confess-- that he or she knows less and less but at least knows less and less about more and more.

I don't think souls or bodies can be changed by incantation. Or anything else by the way.