When I went to Czechoslovakia under the old Communist regime one day in the '80s, I thought to myself whatever I do, whatever happens to me in Prague I'm not going to use the name Kafka, I'm just not going to do it. I won't do it; it's so easy, everyone else does, I'm not going to. I'll write the first non-Kafka mentioning piece.

If you gave [Jerry] Falwell an enema he could be buried in a matchbox.

Hero­ism breaks its heart, and ide­al­ism its back, on the intran­si­gence of the cred­u­lous and the mediocre, manip­u­lated by the cyn­i­cal and the corrupt.

We know that our life is essentially tragic. I'm absolutely not for handing over that very important department of our psyche to those who say, "Why didn't you say so before? God has a plan for you in mind."

I became a journalist partly so that I wouldn't ever have to rely on the press for my information.

Religion is poison because it asks us to give up our most precious faculty, which is that of reason, and to believe things without evidence. It then asks us to respect this, which it calls faith.

I burned the candle at both ends and it often gave a lovely light.