[P]erhaps you notice how the denial is so often the preface to the justification.

In some ways I feel sorry for racists and for religious fanatics, because they so much miss the point of being human, and deserve a sort of pity. But then I harden my heart, and decide to hate them all the more, because of the misery they inflict and because of the contemptible excuses they advance for doing so.

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

In order to terminate a pregnancy, you have to still a heartbeat, switch off a developing brain.

The suicide-bombing community is not absolutely 100 percent religious, but it is pretty nearly 100 percent religious.

It is exactly the fear of revenge that motivates the deepest crimes, from the killing of the enemy's children lest they grow up to play their own part, to the erasure of the enemy's graveyards and holy places so that his hated name can be forgotten.

What I used to say to people, when I was much more engagé myself, is that you can't be apolitical. It will come and get you. It's not that you shouldn't be neutral. It's that you won't be able to stay neutral.