The discovery there is no god is a great relief, because if there were, it would be like living in a celestial North Korea if there was one. You would never be able to escape.

When I meet people who say - which they do all of the time - 'I must just tell you, my great aunt had cancer of the elbow and the doctors gave her 10 seconds to live, but last I heard she was climbing Mount Everest,' and so forth, I switch off quite early.

If asked my opinion about virginity, I would say, "I'm opposed to it." I don't think it deserves to be celebrated, at any rate. Or at least, if I'm not opposed, I'm very highly skeptical and critical of it.

If you gave [Jerry] Falwell an enema he could be buried in a matchbox.

Religion is compulsory in English schools, you know.

The press is still investing itself, it seems to me, in a sort of cynicism. It comes out better for them if they can predict hard times, bogging down, sniping, attrition.

The role of dissident is not, and should not be, a claim of membership in a communion of saints. In other words, the more fallible the mammal, the truer the example.