The people who seem to have a lock on power get swept out in a couple of years. So it's naïve to keep swinging at the same targets over and over. It took me a long time to realize, but most of the shackles that I flailed against were just illusory.

There's a built-up tension in religion, and if you can release it, you'll get a huge and satisfying laugh.

I tend to look at the world more from Voltaire's perspective. Incidentally, if you haven't read Candide lately, it's a fabulous book. It's riotously, laugh-out-loud funny in a way that no Shakespeare comedy will ever be.

For me, marriage is a grotesque, unforgiving, clunky contrivance. Yet society pushes it as a shimmering ideal.

I prefer to linger on the periphery before making a commitment.

I guess I started to realize that being an agnostic was such a wimpy position.

I have a deep suspicion of social institutions and tradition in general.