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

The only people who see the whole picture,’ he murmured, ‘are the ones who step out of the frame.

One of the things a writer is for is to say the unsayable, speak the unspeakable and ask difficult questions.

It is very, very easy not to be offended by a book. You just have to shut 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.

Even when things are at their worst, there’s a little voice in your head saying, ‘Good story!’

If you’re offended, it’s your problem.

If somebody’s trying to shut you up, sing louder, and if possible, better.

Self-censorship is a lie to yourself; if you are going to be trying to seriously create art, to create literary art, and you decide to hold back, to censor yourself, then you are a fool to yourself and it would be better that you kept your mouth shut and did not speak.

We are the storytelling animal.

Stories in families are colossally important. Every family has stories: some funny, some proud, some embarrassing, some shameful. Knowing them is proof of belonging to the family.

Until you know who you are you can’t write.

I stand with Charlie Hebdo, as we all must, to defend the art of satire.

You can’t have modern states based on ideas which have been out of date for a thousand years.

Something was badly amiss with the spiritual life of the planet, Too many demons inside people claiming to believe in God.

I think if we wish to live in any kind of a moral universe, we must hold the perpetrators of violence responsible for the violence they perpetrate. It’s very simple. The criminal is responsible for the crime.

What is freedom of expression? Without the freedom to offend, it ceases to exist.

Next to the right of liberty, the right of property is the most important individual right guaranteed by the Constitution . .

I don’t know whither we are drifting, but I do know where every real thinking patriot will stand in the end, and that’s by the Constitution.

But just as they did in Philadelphia when they were writing the constitution, sooner or later, you’ve got to compromise. You’ve got to start making the compromises that arrive at a consensus and move the country forward.

Preferring members of any one group for no reason other than race or ethnic origin is discrimination for its own sake. This the Constitution forbids.

I am ruled by emotion. She is a fickle leader of a volatile kingdom, where conniving skies cast intemperate clouds over my constitution.

It is ordained in the eternal constitution of things, that men of intemperate minds cannot be free. Their passions forge their fetters.

Certainly the Constitution does not require discrimination on the basis of sex. The only issue is whether it prohibits it. It doesn’t.

It is difficult to maintain the illusion that we are interpreting a Constitution, rather than inventing one.