The [Jewish] Sabbath was not intended to be simply a desert of prohibitions, but rather an oasis for moral restoration and seemly pleasure-one was to eat, drink, even be merry.

Monotheism owes its existence not to philosophic speculation about the nature of reality or knowledge or virtue, but to acceptance of reality identified with a supreme being.

The unlettered man who prayed to his maker would be heard; the pedant reciting a faultless invocation would be ignored.

At Vatican Council II, one dissenting Roman Catholic theologian declared: "Yes, the Bible says "Be fruitful and multiply," but that was when the population was two per square world.

Writing is an affair of yearning for great voyages and hauling on frayed ropes.

In Jewish tradition, death-defying devotion to scholarship was the stuff of saintliness.

Theology emerged not as a course of knowledge but as a feast of homily and imagination and exaggeration in which every man could find his image and his portion. And yet there were limits.

Jews are a singular confusion — difficult to define, awkward to describe, impossible to understand. All the virtues, all the vices, every pleasure, every pain — nothing is spared them.

America has a way of inventing tradition each morning and erasing the past by nightfall, and thehold of ancient custom is endangered by a thousand cicumstances.

God's greatest blessing is children. The only problem is that you have to support them. It's a problem, not a disadvantage.

It was God who dictated what man should believe and do, leaving man the freedom to accept or scoff, to obey or disregard.

I can be patient, but I am not God! Don't take me for granted, or you will spend your life gathering my scattered self!

I was destined to express myself.

What you call freedom is still nothing but choosing how to steer straight into the heart of what chooses you.

For some reason the most devoted mapheads seem to be kids.

Our God is a consuming fire. He consumes pride, lust, materialism, and other sin.

The power of the Latin classic is in character , that of the Greek is in beauty . Now character is capable of being taught, learnt, and assimilated: beauty hardly.

Christians already? It seems to me that it takes a lifetime of work.

I went through about seven years of trying. And through artificial insemination. And through medication. And all of which was unsuccessful.

I take Charb's point, but at some point has Charlie Hebdo been trying to have it both ways because some of what they do is not funny.