“Science is the outcome of being prepared to live without certainty and therefore a mark of maturity. It embraces doubt and loose ends.”

To believe something in the face of evidence and against reason – to believe something by faith – is ignoble, irresponsible and ignorant, and merits the opposite of respect.

The wise say that our failure is to form habits: for habit is the mark of a stereotyped world.

Middle age has been defined as what happens when a person’s broad mind and narrow waist change places.

Religions survive mainly because they brainwash the young.

Religion and science have a common ancestor – ignorance.

Misuse of reason might yet return the world to pre-technological night; plenty of religious zealots hunger for just such a result, and are happy to use the latest technology to effect it.

Humanism is the philosophy that you should be a good guest at the dinner table of life.

I do not believe that there are any such things as gods and goddesses, for exactly the same reasons as I do not believe there are fairies, goblins or sprites, and these reasons should be obvious to anyone over the age of ten.

Look at the blogosphere – the biggest lavatory wall in the universe, a palimpsest of graffiti and execration.

It takes a certain ingenuous faith – but I have it – to believe that people who read and reflect more likely than not come to judge things with liberality and truth.

I despise people who depend on these things [heroin and cocaine]. If you really want a mind-altering experience, look at a tree.

It doesn’t have to be the Grand Canyon, it could be a city street, it could be the face of another human being – Everything is full of wonder.

If there is anything worth fearing in the world, it is living in such a way that gives one cause for regret in the end.

…mastery of the emotions is fundamental to a virtuous life.

Inculcating the various competing – competing, note – falsehoods of the major faiths into small children is a form of child abuse, and a scandal.

I am putting together a secular bible. My Genesis is when the apple falls on Newton’s head.

There are certain things I want to keep to me. I don’t discuss my private life.

There is so many things wrong horribly wrong in this world but I know with certainty that you are not one of them.

This only is certain, that there is nothing certain.

The only certainty is uncertainty

All novels are about certain minorities: the individual is a minority.

Such certainty is beautiful, but uncertainty is more beautiful still.

The moment I am sure that I know is also the moment I cease to grow.

All I am certain of right now is that I don’t want to go anywhere, and that’s not bad for someone who always used to run.