“Send thank-you cards and give standing ovations. Be pro-stuff, not just anti-stuff.”

Empathy is intuitive, but it is also something you can work on intellectually.

Isn’t this enough? Just this world? Just this beautiful, complex wonderfully unfathomable world?

Throughout history, every mystery ever solved has turned out to be NOT magic.

There are children in Africa, starving to death, and you don’t hear them whinging.

Science adjusts its views based on what’s observed.

To dream of the person you would like to be is to waste the person you are.

Define yourself by what you love.

It’s an incredibly exciting thing, this one, meaningless life of yours.

We must think critically, and not just about the ideas of others. Be hard on your beliefs.

Faith is the denial of observation so that belief can be preserved.

Please don’t make the mistake of thinking that the arts and sciences are at odds with one another. That is a recent, stupid and damaging idea.

You know what they call alternative medicine that’s been proved to work? – Medicine.

Only a ginger, can call another ginger Ginger.

How does it so fail to hold our attention that we have to diminish it with the invention of cheap, man-made myths and monsters?

Science is not a body of knowledge nor a system of belief.

Be demonstrative and generous in your praise of those you admire.

My direction is very anti-contemplative. If you thought I was for commercial products, you’d think there was no irony. The irony isn’t meant to be an ironic comment on our society, exactly.

There’s a lot of insincerity about the actions of our legislators; they create distractions – like this anti-gay law you alluded to – and try to mobilise, to exacerbate people’s emotions. Until the legislators started making laws, people minded, generally, their own business.

Unfortunately, President Obama’s failed policies of new regulations, higher taxes, and Obamacare and his anti-business rhetoric have hit Hispanics especially hard. Big government really hurts those who are trying to make it.

Conservatives aren’t anti-immigrant – conservatives are pro-legal immigration.

Anti-Americanism is a pure totalitarian concept. The very notion is idiotic.

We’re not anti-police… we’re anti-police brutality.

It may be a coincidence, but from the minute I took anti-depressants, I didn’t pick up a guitar or a pen for seven years.

There are no halfway measures against bigotry, hatred and anti-Semitism. It’s got to be rejected totally.