No school of philosophy has ever solved this question of whether being determines consciousness or the other way around. It may be a false antithesis.

Ever since I discovered that my god given male member was going to give me no peace, I decided to give it no rest in return.

I have not been able to discover whether there exists a precise French equivalent for the common Anglo-American expression 'killing time.' It's a very crass and breezy expression, when you ponder it for a moment, considering that time, after all, is killing us.

Most of the utopian community ideas actually are religious. They're based more on the idea of the monastery than the commune.

The brilliant Schiller was wrong in his Joan of Arc when he said against stupidity the gods themselves contend in vain. It is actually by means of the gods that we make our stupidity and gullibility into something ineffable.

In a Pyongyang restaurant, don't ever ask for a doggie bag.

Islam makes very large claims for itself. In its art, there is a prejudice against representing the human form at all. The prohibition on picturing the prophet - who was only another male mammal - is apparently absolute. So is the prohibition on pork or alcohol or, in some Muslim societies, music or dancing. Very well then, let a good Muslim abstain rigorously from all these. But if he claims the right to make me abstain as well, he offers the clearest possible warning and proof of an aggressive intent.