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

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.

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.

Between the adored and the adorer falls the shadow.

I’ve been worrying about God a little bit lately. It seems like he’s been in a bad mood. And I think it has to do with the quality of lovers he’s been getting.

In the cookie of life, friends are the chocolate chips.

From the beginning men used God to justify the unjustifiable.

Ability without honor is useless.

The leader of the genius must have the ability to make different opponents appear as if they belonged to one category.

The most we can say of democracy or freedom is that they give our personal abilities a little more influence on our well-being.

Patience is not simply the ability to wait, it’s more so how we behave while we are being patient that separates us.

She had it all, brains and body and the ability to tell me to go to hell whenever I deserved it. Love, at its finest.

A man who acquires the ability to take full possession of his own mind may take possession of anything else to which he is justly entitled.

Show me a man of average ability but extraordinary desire and I will show you a winner everytime.

Don’t measure yourself by what you have accomplished, but by what you should have accomplished with your ability.