“People who believe in a divine creator, trying to live their lives in obedience to his supposed wishes and in expectation of a supposed eternal reward, are victims of the greatest confidence trick of all time.”

As for the accusation of intellectual pride, surely the boot is on the other foot. Atheists don’t claim to know anything with certainty — it’s the believers who know it all.

To imagine that “God moves in mysterious ways” is to put up a smokescreen of mystery behind which fantasy may survive in spite of all the facts.

To imagine that God wants prayers and hymns of praise is to make him out to a sort of oriental potentate; while praying for favours is an attempt to get him to change his allegedly all-wise mind.

As for an eternity in heaven – that would be hell!

This is not to say, of course, that there is no purpose in life at all: we all make our own purposes as we go through life. And life does not lose its value simply because it it not going to last forever.

The one function that most gods seem to have in common is to give human existence some ultimate purpose – and, while it is not possible to disprove an ultimate purpose, there does not seem to be any evidence for it.

Why am I an atheist? The short answer is that I cannot accept any of the alternatives. I simply don’t find them believable.

That’s where all good music comes from, I think – anything that’s likely to have an impact on pop culture comes from a point where there’s no expectation of it becoming anything other than personal.

Service standards keep rising. As competitors render better and better service, customers become more demanding. Their expectations grow.

[A new all-encompassing national identification system] contradicts some of our most sacrosanct American principles of personal liberty and expectations of privacy and is far in excess of what is needed to provide us with the security and protections we all want.

Education is a shared commitment between dedicated teachers, motivated students and enthusiastic parents with high expectations.

Trust is simply a set of expectations about the present and the future. The key is to ensure that these are chosen and evaluated based upon awareness versus fear.

When you make speeches you elicit expectations against which you will be held accountable.

My expectations are greater than the average fan’s but, I’m more realistic than the top prognosticators.

Opportunity meets you at your level of expectation.