[O]ur statesmen, our businessmen, our everyman must take on a science fictional way of thinking.

Although the time of death is approaching me, I am not afraid of dying and going to Hell or (what would be considerably worse) going to the popularized version of Heaven. I expect death to be nothingness and, for removing me from all possible fears of death, I am thankful to atheism.

I do not use airplanes. They strike me as unsporting. You can have an automobile accident-and survive. You can be on a sinking ship-and survive. You can be in an earthquake, fire, volcanic eruption, tornado, what you will-and survive. But if your plane crashes, you do not survive. And I say the heck with it.

I figure that if God actually does exist, he is big enough to understand an honest difference of opinion.

Maybe happiness is this: not feeling like you should be elsewhere, doing something else, being someone else.

The true artist is quite rational as well as imaginative and knows what he is doing; if he does not, his art suffers.

Any book worth banning is a book worth reading.