There are days when I miss my old convictions as if they were an amputated limb. But in general I feel better, and no less radical, and you will feel better too, I guarantee, once you leave hold of the doctrinaire and allow your chainless mind to do its own thinking.

Forgotten were the elementary rules of logic, that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence and that what can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence.

it is interesting to find that people of faith now seek defensively to say that they are no worse than fascists or Nazis or Stalinists

I can't compose or play music; I'm not that fortunate. But I can write and I can talk and sometimes when I'm doing either of these things I realize that I've written a sentence or uttered a thought that I didn't absolutely know I had in me... until I saw it on the page or heard myself say it.

The mildest criticism of religion is also the most radical and the most devastating one. Religion is man-made.

I could not possibly improve on the sentiment, but I don't think it ought to depend on the current austerities. Isn't Christmas a moral and aesthetic nightmare whether or not the days are prosperous?

A gentleman is never rude except on purpose - I can honestly be nasty sober, believe you me.