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

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.

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

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.

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.

Most sound work in films is done very quickly, and at the end of the schedule where it's just jammed together and you always wish that you had more sympathy.

When we advance a little into life, we find that the tongue of man creates nearly all the mischief of the world.

The nature of finite things is to have the seed of their passing-away as their essential being: the hour of their birth is the hour of their death.

I believe we owe it to our children and grandchildren to stay engaged and to help spread liberty and to help reformers.

I don't know anyone at the highest levels who approved Abu Ghraib. If President Barack Obama for a moment thought that somebody at a high level had approved it, he would go after them.

I have this theory that if one person can go out of their way to show compassion then it will start a chain reaction of the same.

People are afraid, very much afraid of those who know themselves. They have a certain power, a certain aura and a certain magnetism.

A critic is a man who creates nothing and thereby feels qualified to judge the work of creative men. There is logic in this; he is unbiased, he hates all creative people equally.

If the ends don't justify the means, then what does?

Good old grandsire ... we shall be joyful of thy company.