I'm not much given to straight, irony-free hero-worship.

I do like Philip Pullman.And that's an exception because Philip Pullman's books allow magic.

In childhood our credulity serves us well. It helps us to pack, with extraordinary rapidity, our skulls full of the wisdom of our parents and our ancestors. But if we don't grow out of it in the fullness of time, our ... nature makes us a sitting target for astrologers, mediums, gurus, evangelists, and quacks. We need to replace the automatic credulity of childhood with the constructive skepticism of adult science.

Humans have more moral responsibility perhaps, because they are capable of reasoning.

We who are atheists are also a-fairyists, a-teapotists, and a-unicornists, but we don't have to bother saying so.

You can't imagine how gratifying it is to have a reader come up to you and say, 'You changed my life.'

Two religions cannot both be right, because they contradict each other, yet they can both be wrong.