“You can’t have modern states based on ideas which have been out of date for a thousand years.”

Once you put a thought into the world, it can be disagreed with, but it can’t be unthought.

We all owe death a life.

What I do think is evident is that those countries in the world where Islamic extremism has recovered the most power, those are also the countries which are most disliked.

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.

But there’s one thing we must all be clear about: terrorism is not the pursuit of legitimate goals by some sort of illegitimate means. Whatever the murderers may be trying to achieve, creating a better world certainly isn’t one of their goals. Instead they are out to murder innocent people.

My horizon’s have shrunk and I have only endings to write.

Religion, a mediaeval form of unreason, when combined with modern weaponry becomes a real threat to our freedoms. This religious totalitarianism has caused a deadly mutation in the heart of Islam and we see the tragic consequences in Paris today.

Language is courage: the ability to conceive a thought, to speak it, and by doing so to make it true.

I didn’t become a writer to write about me.

An attack upon our ability to tell stories is not just censorship – it is a crime against our nature as human beings.

The lessons one learns at school are not always the ones the school thinks it’s teaching.

I write books I’d enjoy reading, I’m the reader standing behind my shoulder.

Respect for religion’ has become a code phrase meaning ‘fear of religion.’ Religions, like all other ideas, deserve criticism, satire, and, yes, our fearless disrespect.

Liberate yourself, because no one else is going to liberate you.

I have never really thought of myself as a writer about religion. And I think one of the things that happened to me as a result of all that is that I think it did for some people, many people, obscure the kind of writer that I actually am.

Every time you finish a book, you have a terrible feeling that there’s just never going to be another one. But fortunately, so far, the next one has always shown up.

I’m touched by the idea that when we do things that are useful and helpful – collecting these shards of spirituality – that we may be helping to bring about a healing.

It [feminism] is mixed up with a muddled idea that women are free when they serve their employers but slaves when they help their husbands.

Star Wars has always struck a chord with people. There are issues of loyalty, of friendship, of good and evil… The theme came from stories and ideas that have been around for thousands of years.

There is an element of truth in every idea that lasts long enough to be called corny.

A Catholic is a person who has plucked up courage to face the incredible and inconceivable idea that something else may be wiser than he is.

Even people you hate deserve opinions. And sometimes they’re going to have better ideas than yours. Keep an open mind to everyone.

Ideas are a dime a dozen. People who execute them are not.

And in the end, we were all just humans, Drunk on the idea that love, only love, could heal our brokenness.