Terrorism works better as a tactic for dictatorships, or for would-be dictators, than for revolutionaries .

I became a journalist because one didn't have to specialise.

There are days when I miss my old convictions as if they were an amputated limb. But in general I feel better, and no less radical, and you will feel better too, I guarantee, once you leave hold of the doctrinaire and allow your chainless mind to do its own thinking.

Since it is obviously inconceivable that all religions can be right, the most reasonable conclusion is that they are all wrong.

What if I pulled through and the pious faction contentedly claimed that their prayers had been answered? That would somehow be irritating.

When I go to the clinic next and sit with a tube in my arm and watch the poison go in, I'm in an attitude of abject passivity. It doesn't feel like fighting at all; it just feels like submitting.

It's probably a merciful thing that pain is impossible to describe from memory