As Camille Paglia's success has demonstrated, what is most marketable is absolutism and attitude undiluted by thought.

Jargon seems to be the place where the right brain and the left brain meet.

Only people who die very young learn all they really need to know in kindergarten.

In its more authoritarian forms, religion punishes questioning and rewards gullibility. Faith is not a function of stupidity, but a frequent cause of it.

What might once have been called whining is now exalted as a process of asserting selfhood; self-absorption is regarded as a form of self-expression.

Under the rubric of religious freedom, we respect the right to worship differently much more than the right to worship not at all.

Secularists are often wrongly accused of trying to purge religious ideals from public discourse. We simply want to deny them public sponsorship.

Faith is not a function of stupidity but a frequent cause of it.

Whatever lessons we take from this dreadful attack (on the World Trade Center and Pentagon), we should never forget that it was, after all, a faith based initiative.

Tolerance is thin gruel compared to the rapture of absolute truths. It's not surprising that religious people are often better protected by atheists and agnostics than each other.

In this climate - with belief in guardian angels and creationism becoming commonplace - making fun of religion is as risky as burning a flag in an American Legion hall.

Listen to your instinct. It is your greatest treasure. Your beauty in the outside reflects your inner beauty.

The easiest way for readers to connect with characters and feel sympathy is to make the character entertaining, sympathetic and likeable.

The life I live is my art work.

Literature is air, and Im suffocating in mediocrity.

The combined efforts of millions of concerned citizens could do wonders to help the impoverished. The American people are ready for action!

Clinton left the White House with all the class of an XFL halftime show.

The examples of vice at home corrupt us more quickly and easily than others, since they steal into our minds under the highest authority.

I'll run against the grain till the day I drop?

I give you points for persistence, but you lose a few for being slow on the uptake. (Rae)

The thing about television is that you can't fake it. Your sense of discovery must be genuine; you can't pretend to be surprised.