I have more than once in my time woken up feeling like death.

Religion fosters servility and solipsism.

Allow a friend to believe in a bogus prospectus or a false promise and you cease, after a short while, to be a friend at all.

The essence of the independent mind lies not in what it thinks, but in how it thinks.

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

It's considered acceptable in our culture to approach perfect strangers, as often or not who may be in extremis, and evangelise. I don't see why that's considered a normal thing.

The fragility of love is what is most at stake here—humanity's most crucial three-word avowal is often uttered only to find itself suddenly embarrassing or orphaned or isolated or ill-timed—but strangely enough it can work better as a literal or reassuring statement than a transcendent or numinous or ecstatic one.