Mockery of religion is one of the most essential things because to demystify supposedly 'holy text dictated by god' and show that they are man made and what you have to show [is] there internal inconsistencies and absurdities. One of the beginnings of human emancipation is the ability to laugh at authority... it is an indispensable thing people can call it blasphemy if they like, but if they call it that they have to assume there is something to be blasphemed - some divine work, well I don't accept the premise.

Trust is not the same as faith. A friend is someone you trust. Putting faith in anyone is a mistake.

Nonintervention does not mean that nothing happens. It means that something else happens.

I wrote a piece from North Korea called Visit to a Small Planet which is a line I stole from a play of Gore Vidal's, because it did seem to me as if I had left this planet completely to go on this visit to the northern part of the Korean Peninsula, and it was as if coming back from another spatial body altogether.

Reagan is doing to the country what he can no longer do to his wife.

If religious instruction were not allowed until the child had attained the age of reason, we would be living in a quite different world.

The only position that leaves me with no cognitive dissonance is atheism.