It is only those who hope to transform human beings who end up by burning them, like the waste product of a failed experiment.

All the time, I've felt that life is a wager and that I probably was getting more out of leading a bohemian existence as a writer than I would have if I didn't.

I don't want them (religious followers) trying to inflict their belief on me.

Forgotten were the elementary rules of logic, that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence and that what can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence.

I'm not afraid of being dead, that's to say there's nothing to be afraid of. I won't know I'm dead, would be my strong conviction. And if I find that I'm alive in any way at all, that'll be a pleasant surprise. I quite like surprises.

Alcohol makes other people less tedious, and food less bland, and can help provide what the Greeks called entheos, or the slight buzz of inspiration when reading or writing

I'm afraid the SS's relationship with the Catholic Church is something the Church still has to deal with and does not deny.