Faith is one of the world's great evils, comparable to the smallpox virus but harder to eradicate.

I am agnostic only to the extent that I am agnostic about fairies at the bottom of the garden

Most people, I believe, think that you need a God to explain the existence of the world, and especially the existence of life. They are wrong, but our education system is such that many people don't know it.

I remember at the age of six regaling my poor little sister with stories about the planets, and how far away they were and which ones might have life.

The illusion of design is so successful that to this day most Americans (including, significantly, many influential and rich Americans) stubbornly refuse to believe it is an illusion.

Nature is not cruel, only pitilessly indifferent. This is one of the hardest lessons for humans to learn. We cannot admit that things might be neither good nor evil, neither cruel nor kind, but simply callous-indifferent to all suffering, lacking all purpose.

I read novels for entertainment rather than for edification, so I tend not to read the sort of novels that are said to illuminate the human condition.