My political life has been informed by the view that if there was any truth to religion there wouldn't really be any need for politics.

If religious instruction were not allowed until the child had attained the age of reason, we would be living in a quite different world.

Islamophobia: a word created by fascists, and used by cowards, to manipulate morons.

Religion is poison because it asks us to give up our most precious faculty, which is that of reason, and to believe things without evidence. It then asks us to respect this, which it calls faith.

Never be a spectator of unfairness or stupidity. Seek out argument and disputation for their own sake; the grave will supply plenty of time for silence.

Human beings are pattern-seeking animals who will prefer even a bad theory or a conspiracy theory to no theory at all.

I learned that very often the most intolerant and narrow-minded people are the ones who congratulate themselves on their tolerance and open-mindedness.

High moral character is not a precondition for great moral accomplishments.

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

Why do humans exist? A major part of the answer: because Pikaia Gracilens survived the Burgess decimation.

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.

Without forgetting it is quite impossible to live at all.

She reminded me of a darkness, a darkness that I've missed.

Life is an irreversible process and for that reason its future can never be a repetition of the past.

There's a ton of amazing music that's not getting heard.

I don't want anything given to me.

Nowhere so busy a man as he there was And yet he seemed busier than he was.

I think our family is like a lot of families. We had no vocabulary for mental illness

I got a very good life. I sold plenty of records, I get recognized plenty, I can always have somebody call up and get me a fine table at a restaurant. What do you really need, ultimately?

I'm a big deal That's why I get more head than a pigtail

I've lived in New York for 40 years. I came right after college.