As the cleansing ocean closes over bin Laden's carcass, may the earth lie lightly on the countless graves of those he sentenced without compunction to be burned alive or dismembered in the street.

A celebrity is well known for being well known. I'm relatively well known - but for what I've written and said, or so I fondly imagine.

There are, after all, atheists who say they wish the fable were true but are unable to suspend the requisite disbelief, or who have relinquished belief only with regret. To this I reply: who wishes that there was a permanent, unalterable celestial despotism that subjected us to continual surveillance and could convict us of thought-crime, and who regarded us as its private property even after we died? How happy we ought to be, at the reflection that there exists not a shred of respectable evidence to support such a horrible hypothesis.

The search for Nirvana, like the search for Utopia or the end of history or the classless society, is ultimately a futile and dangerous one. It involves, if it does not necessitate, the sleep of reason. There is no escape from anxiety and struggle.

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

I have tried for much of my life to write as if I was composing my sentences to be read posthumously.

It's often a bad sign when people defend themselves against charges which haven't been made.