Religion is responsible for a lot of the problems in the history of the world and it's not something that I practice or recommend, but to each his own.

Make as much racket as you like people. Noise is life and an excess of noise is a sign that life is good. There will be time for us all to be quiet when we are safely dead.

Captain Ahab drowned, he reminded himself; it was the trimmer, Ishmael, who survived.

Madame Bovary and a flying carpet, they are both untrue in the same way. Somebody made them up.

When you write, you write out of your best self. Everything else drops away.

In general, writers shouldn't be killed for what they write, though I can think of exceptions.

Sometimes people have said that Islam, in its own calendar, is still only in the Middle Ages.