How we pay attention to the present moment...determin es the character of our experience and...the quality of our lives.

The problem with religion, because it's been sheltered from criticism, is that it allows people to believe en masse what only idiots or lunatics could believe in isolation.

Either God can do nothing to stop catastrophes like this, or he doesn't care to, or he doesn't exist. God is either impotent, evil, or imaginary. Take your pick, and choose wisely.

A puppet is free as long as he loves his strings.

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.

You can do what you decide to do — but you cannot decide what you will decide to do.

How can we be “free” as conscious agents if everything that we consciously intend is caused by events in our brain that we do not intend and of which we are entirely unaware? We can’t.

You don't get anything worth getting, by pretending to know things you don't know.

Jesus Christ—who, as it turns out, was born of a virgin, cheated death, and rose bodily into the heavens—can now be eaten in the form of a cracker

The position of the Muslim community in the face of all provocations seems to be: Islam is a religion of peace, and if you say that it isn't, we will kill you.

Religious moderation is the product of secular knowledge and scriptural ignorance.

I surround myself with things that make me happy. Why? Because ... it makes me happy.

You only confuse hope with power once in life.

Loneliness is your only companion.

In omni adversitate fortunæ, infelicissimum genus est infortunii fuisse felicem In every adversity of fortune, to have been happy is the most unhappy kind of misfortune.

I believe that what we call beautiful is generally a by-product.

The spirit of the world encloses four kinds of spirits, diametrically opposed to charity--the spirit of resentment, spirit of aversion, spirit of jealousy and the spirit of indifference.

Yeah, look, I think what we have with the social media and the digital media, and all the telecommunications we have today is a big megaphone, amplification.

In their seeking, wisdom and madness are one and the same. On the path of love, friend and stranger are one and the same.

Not every oak has to be gnarled, every detective hard-bitten. The adjective that exists solely as a decoration is a self-indulgence for the writer and an obstacle for the reader.

We will not bend or fail until the blood of every last Jew from the youngest child to the oldest elder is spilt to redeem our land!