In our time, the symbol of state intrusion into the private life is the mandatory urine test.

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

The faithful believe that certain truths have been 'revealed.' The skeptics and secularists believe that truth is only to be sought by free inquiry and trial and error. Only one of those positions is dogmatic.

A lot of people, because of my contempt for the false consolations of religion, think of me as a symbolic public opponent of that in extremis. And sometimes that makes me feel a bit alarmed, to be the repository of other people's hope.

The essence of the independent mind lies not in what it thinks, but in how it thinks.

Demands that you believe the impossible do not lead to peaceful outcomes.

The fragility of love is what is most at stake here—humanity's most crucial three-word avowal is often uttered only to find itself suddenly embarrassing or orphaned or isolated or ill-timed—but strangely enough it can work better as a literal or reassuring statement than a transcendent or numinous or ecstatic one.