Our weapons are the ironic mind against the literal, the open mind against the credulous, the courageous pursuit of truth against the fearful and abject forces who would set limits to investigation (and who stupidly claim that we already have all the truth we need).

I can say with some confidence that no matter how many obstacles and setbacks you encounter, it is your response that truly matters

The shortest way to drive yourself mad is to refuse to be swayed by hope or fear

Beware of those who offer simple solutions to complex problems.

Take the risk of thinking for yourself, much more happiness, truth, beauty, and wisdom will come to you that way.

We have a choice. We have two options as human beings. We have a choice between conversation and war. That’s it. Conversation and violence. And faith is a conversation stopper

A life that partakes even a little of friendship, love, irony, humor, parenthood, literature, and music, and the chance to take part in battles for the liberation of others cannot be called ‘meaningless’ except if the person living it is also an existentialist and elects to call it so

The Bible is a manual for enslavement, for the subjugation of women, for the control of populations, for the genocidal extermination of competing tribes, for the dissolution of the autonomy of the powerful state, for the infiltration of human thought, for the diabolical control of those who wish to be free men and women.

That which can be asserted without evidence, can be dismissed without evidence

I have always found it quaint and rather touching that there is a movement [Freemasonry] in the U.S. that thinks Americans are not yet selfish enough

The person who is certain, and who claims divine warrant for his certainty, belongs now to the infancy of our species

The Christian heaven is a concept of the utmost simplicity. Heaven is for the obedient. Hell is for the disobedient. Heaven is for those who have faith. Hell is for those who don’t.

For me, religion poisons everything good in the world

If I convert, it’s because it’s better that a believer dies than that an atheist does.

The funny thing about the heart is a soft heart is a strong heart, and a hard heart is a weak heart.

The most overrated virtue in life is ‘niceness,’ and the main advantage of America over Europe is that it has fewer ‘nice’ people.

The alternative to boredom is what’s known as excitement. But like oats, excitement can sometimes be a little hard to digest

The governor of Texas, who, when asked if the Bible should also be taught in Spanish, replied that ‘if English was good enough for Jesus, then it’s good enough for me

I often wish I’d got sober at a much younger age than I did. I’d have had a lot more time to do other things

The person who is certain, and who claims divine warrant for his certainty, belongs now to the infancy of our species

I think it’s important for people who don’t know you to get a sense of the way you view the world, your politics, your point of view. I think that helps people understand your takes on various things.

To be an atheist is a matter not of moral choice but of human obligation

Owners of dogs will have noticed that, if you provide them with food and water and shelter and affection, they will think you are God. Whereas owners of cats are compelled to realize that, if you provide them with food and water and shelter and affection, they draw the conclusion that they are God

I’m not religious in any sense

The essential principle of totalitarianism is to make laws that are impossible to obey

The only real radicalism in our time will come as it always has—from people who insist on thinking for themselves and who reject party-mindedness

The moment you say that any idea system is sacred, whether it’s a religious belief system or a secular ideology, the moment you declare a set of ideas to be immune from criticism, satire, derision, or contempt, freedom of thought becomes impossible

What can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence

The totalitarian, to me, is the enemy – the one that’s absolute, the one that wants control over the inside of your head, not just your actions and your taxes.

People think, ‘Well, religion is good for mankind. It must be worth teaching it to children.’ Well, you have to look at the texts. You have to say, ‘Do I, as a parent, if I can avoid it, want my child to be taught this?’

It is said that the truth will make you free. The truth alone will not. It must be combined with facts and other astute bargaining devices

If someone tells me that I’ve hurt their feelings, I say, ‘I’m still waiting to hear what your point is

I’m a journalist who writes novels on the side, so it’s not like I’m prohibited from expressing my opinion, it’s not like I’m running for office. And also, I think the fact that I’ve lived on both sides of the Atlantic has given me a slightly different perspective

The Bible looks like it started out as a game of Mad Libs

Human decency is not derived from religion. It precedes it

Many religions now come before us with ingratiating smirks and outspread hands, like an unctuous merchant in a bazaar. They offer consolation and solidarity and uplift, competing as they do in a marketplace. But we have a right to remember how barbarically they behaved when they were strong and were making an offer that people could not refuse.

The search for nirvana, like the search for utopia or the end of history or the classless society, is ultimately a futile and dangerous one. It involves, if it does not necessitate, the sleep of reason. There is no escape from anxiety and struggle

I’m a member of no party, and have no ideology except a very old-fashioned one: liberty.

To be in opposition is not to be a nihilist. And there is no decent or charted way of making a living at it. It is something you are, and not something you do

It’s not true that I’m not religious. I’m religious, in the sense that I believe that the universe is lawful, that there are discoverable truths, that there is such a thing as reality, and we’re not just assembling this potential reality, which is subjective, and saying that it’s true because we believe it. There are real facts.

To terrify children with the image of hell, to consider women an inferior creation, is that good for the world?

I am not even an atheist so much as I am an antitheist; I not only maintain that all religions are versions of the same untruth, but I hold that the influence of churches and the effect of religious belief is positively harmful

I’m not militant about atheism, but I feel like religion has been imposed on me.

The essence of tyranny is not iron law. It is capricious law

The governor of Texas, who, when asked if the Bible should also be taught in Spanish, replied that ‘if English was good enough for Jesus, then it’s good enough for me

What happens when we’re dead? The short answer is, ‘Nothing.’ The long answer is, ‘I don’t know, but I’m not in a hurry to find out

We have a choice. We have two options as human beings. We have a choice between conversation and war. That’s it. Conversation and violence. And faith is a conversation stopper.

Alcohol makes other people less tedious, and food less bland, and can help provide what the Greeks called entheos, or the slight buzz of inspiration when reading or writing

The cure for poverty has a name, in fact: it’s called the empowerment of women. If you give women some control over the rate at which they reproduce, if you give them some say, take them off the animal cycle of reproduction to which nature and some doctrine—religious doctrine condemns them, and then if you throw in a handful of seeds perhaps and some credit, the floor of everything in that village, not just poverty, but education, health, and optimism will increase. It doesn’t matter; try and do it without empowering women, you can’t do it. The benefits are so many.

To the dumb question, ‘Why me?’ the cosmos barely bothers to return the reply, ‘Why not?’

I’m not religious, and I’m not a believer, but I think we have lost something in not having the old man (God) around

The Bible may, indeed does, contain a warrant for trafficking in humans, for ethnic cleansing, for slavery, for bride-price, and for indiscriminate massacre, but we are not bound by any of it because it was put together by crude, uncultured human mammals.

What is it you most dislike? Stupidity, especially in its nastiest forms of racism and superstition

Everybody does have a book in them, but in most cases, that’s where it should stay.

I’m a member of no party. I have no ideology. I’m a rationalist.

To be the father of growing daughters is to understand something of what Yeats evokes with his imperishable phrase ‘terrible beauty.’ Nothing can make one so happily exhilarated or so frightened: it’s a solid lesson in the limitations of self to realize that your heart is running around inside someone else’s body.

We have the same job we’ve always had, to say that there are no final solutions, there is no absolute truth, there is no supreme leader, there is no totalitarian solution that says if you will just give up your freedom of inquiry, if you will simply abandon your critical faculties, a world of idiotic bliss can be yours.

I don’t think the war in Afghanistan was ruthlessly enough waged.

The totalitarian, to me, is the enemy—the one that’s absolute, the one that wants control over the inside of your head, not just your actions and your taxes

The essence of the independent mind lies not in what it thinks, but in how it thinks

I became a journalist partly so that I wouldn’t ever have to rely on the press for my information

Owners of dogs will have noticed that, if you provide them with food and water and shelter and affection, they will think you are God. Whereas owners of cats are compelled to realize that, if you provide them with food and water and shelter and affection, they draw the conclusion that they are God.

To terrify children with the image of hell, to consider women an inferior creation—is that good for the world?

The four most overrated things in life are champagne, lobster, anal sex, and picnics.

I have always found it quaint, and rather touching, that there is a movement [Freemasonry] in the U.S. that thinks Americans are not yet selfish enough

The only position that leaves me with no cognitive dissonance is atheism. It is not a creed. Death is certain, replacing both the siren-song of Paradise and the dread of Hell. Life on this earth, with all its mystery and beauty and pain, is then to be lived far more intensely: we stumble and get up, we are sad, confident, insecure, feel loneliness and joy and love. There is nothing more; but I want nothing more

Beware the irrational, however seductive. Shun the ‘transcendent’ and all who invite you to subordinate or annihilate yourself

Human decency is not derived from religion. It precedes it.

Religion is part of the human make-up. It’s also part of our cultural and intellectual history. Religion was our first attempt at literature, the texts, our first attempt at cosmology, making sense of where we are in the universe, our first attempt at health care, believing in faith healing, our first attempt at philosophy.

What can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence.