If by some bizarre chance there turns out to be a god [...], I'm willing to bet he's an atheist too.

There is a point beyond which conciliation looks like capitulation. I do not believe I passed that point, but others have thought otherwise.

We cannot allow religious hooligans to place limiting points on thought.

I remember when I was young, many cities in the Muslim world were cosmopolitan cities with a lot of culture.

A little bit of one story joins onto an idea from another, and hey presto, . . . not old tales but new ones. Nothing comes from nothing.

Perhaps because my relationship with my father went through such a long, bumpy time, it's been very important for me to work to try to keep lines of communication open between my sons and myself to try to avoid my father's mistakes. At least if you're making mistakes, make different mistakes.

Human beings, you see, do absolutely two primary things. We see like and unlike. Like becomes, in literature, simile and metaphor. Unlike becomes uniqueness and difference, from which I believe, the novel is born.