If this is the best God can do, I'm not impressed.

Humor is based on surprise, and surprise is a milder way of saying shock. It's surprise that makes the joke.

I would never want to be a member of a group whose symbol was a guy nailed to two pieces of wood.

Religion - religion, at best - at BEST - is like a lift in your shoe. If you need it for a while, and it makes you walk straight and feel better - fine. But you don't need it forever, or you can become permanently disabled. Religion is like a lift in the shoe, and I say just don't ask me to wear your shoes. And let's not go down and nail lifts onto the natives' feet.

We've learned how to make a living, but not a life. We've added years to life, not life to years.

None of the Christian religions do [interest me]. They're all outer-directed.

There is a core of loneliness. It's partly existential. Secondly, I was raised a loner. My parents were not there. My father was asked to leave because he couldn't metabolize ethanol. Actually, my mother ran away with us when I was 2 months old and my brother was 5. Real dramatic stuff: down the fire escape, through backyards. So, I sort of raised myself. I was alone a lot and I invented myself - I lived through the radio and through my imagination.