If the creative artist worries if he will still be free tomorrow, then he will not be free today.

It seems that the right of freedom of speech that was enshrined in numerous constitutions is now under attack by religious institutions.

Our lives are not what we deserve; they are, let us agree, in many ways deficient.

When we stop believing in gods we can start believing in their stories, I retort. There are of course no such things as miracles, but if there were and so tomorrow we woke up to find no more believers on earth, no more devout Christians, Muslims, Hindus, Jews, why then, sure the beauty of the stories would be a thing we could focus on because they wouldn't be dangerous any more, they would become capable of compelling the only belief that leads to truth, that is, the willing, disbelieving of the reader in a well-told tale.

A man is sane only to the extent that he subscribes to a previously-agreed construction of reality.

I've always prided myself on my discipline as a writer. I do it like a job. I get up in the morning and go to my desk.

We are described into corners, and then we must describe ourselves out of corners.