There's a lot of anti-intellectualism in Britain. And the writer's views on this or that are really of less importance, as they see it, than that of the man in the street.

Since it is no longer permissible to disparage any single faith or creed, let us start disparaging all of them... A religion is a belief system with no basis in reality whatever. Religious belief is without reason and without dignity, and its record is near-universally dreadful.

I want incremental improvements. There's the record of all the revolutionary and violent change and extremism in general - it's dreadful.

You see tragedy requires persons of heroic stature. It works on the principle of people being more than humansuper-humanand also being only too human. But there just aren't many great figures around now, so the tragic mechanisms can't work.

When the past is forgotten, the present is unforgettable

[On STDs] This be Nature’s way of recommending monogamy.

My life looked good on paper - where, in fact, almost all of it was being lived.