optimism is a disease

Writers have been in terrible situations and have yet managed to produce extraordinary work.

Doubt, it seems to me, is the central condition of a human being in the twentieth century.

And using that - the birth of a religion, it suggests that you have got two tests. You have the test of weakness. When you're weak, do you compromise, do you bend, do you give in, do you accommodate? And then the test of strength. When you're strong, are you merciful, are you generous, or are you cruel?

The answer to religion is not no religion, but another way of thinking of it. Another way of being in it.

I don't dictate to anyone what to believe and what not to. And I don't want that to be dictated to me either.

What is freedom of expression? Without the freedom to offend, it ceases to exist. Without the freedom to challenge, even to satirize all orthodoxies, it ceases to exist. Language and the imagination cannot be imprisoned, or art will die, and with it, a little of what makes us human.