I have nowhere claimed nor even implied that unbelief is a guarantee of good conduct or even an indicator of it.

At Oxford one was positively encouraged to take wine during tutorials. The tongue must be untied.

To what faults do you feel most indulgent? To the ones that arise from urgent material needs.

We know of no spectacle more ridiculous—or more contemptible—than that of the religious reactionaries who dare to re-write the history of our republic. Or who try to do so. Is it possible that, in their vanity and stupidity, they suppose that they can erase the name of Thomas Jefferson and replace it with the name of some faith-based mediocrity whose name is already obscure? If so, we cheerfully resolve to mock them, and to give them the lie in their teeth.

Hannah Arendt in her study of totalitarianism borrowed from Immanuel Kant the concept of radical evil, of evil that's so evil that in the end it destroys itself, it's so committed to evil and it's so committed to hatred and cruelty that it becomes suicidal. My definition of it is the surplus value that's generated by totalitarianism. It means you do more violence, more cruelty than you absolutely have to to stay in power.

It's no fun to appreciate to the full the truth of the materialist proposition that I don't have a body, I am a body.

Forget it. Never explain; never apologize. You can either write posthumously or you can't.