“It's surprising to me how many of my friends send Christmas cards, or holiday cards, including my atheist and secular friends.”
Christmas“I'm afraid the SS's relationship with the Catholic Church is something the Church still has to deal with and does not deny.”
Relationship“It's surprising to me how many of my friends send Christmas cards, or holiday cards, including my atheist and secular friends.”
Christmas“People until I was 60 would always say they thought I looked younger, which I think, without flattering myself, I did, but I think I certainly have, as George Orwell says people do after a certain age, the face they deserve.”
Age“I think the materialist conception of history is valid.”
History“Trust is not the same as faith. A friend is someone you trust. Putting faith in anyone is a mistake.”
Faith“I don't think the war in Afghanistan was ruthlessly enough waged.”
War“The advice I've been giving to people all my life - that you may not be interested in the dialectic but the dialectic is interested in you you can't give up politics, it won't give you up - was the advice I should have been taking myself.”
Politics“When I go to the clinic next and sit with a tube in my arm and watch the poison go in, I'm in an attitude of abject passivity. It doesn't feel like fighting at all it just feels like submitting.”
Attitude“A faction willing to take the risks of making war on the ossified status quo in the Middle East can be described as many things, but not as conservative.”
War“I have more than once in my time woken up feeling like death.”
Death“A good day is one where I can not just read a book, but write a review of it. Maybe today I'll be able to do that. I get for some reason somewhat stronger when the sun starts to go down. Dusk is a good time for me. I'm crepuscular.”
Good“I don't envy or much respect people who are completely politicised.”
Respect“The penalty for getting mugged in an American city and losing your ID is that you can't fly home.”
Home“My children, to the extent that they have found religion, have found it from me, in that I insist on at least a modicum of religious education for them.”
Education“High moral character is not a precondition for great moral accomplishments.”
Great“The cause of my life has been to oppose superstition. It's a battle you can't hope to win - it's a battle that's going to go on forever. It's part of the human condition.”
Hope“I don't think consensus-building politics is what I'm meant to be doing.”
Politics“And when I was young, my family was perfectly nice. I write a lot about it, as you noticed. But it was rather limited. I think, I don't think anyone in my family would really feel I'd done them an injustice by saying that. We didn't see many people. There were many books. It was as if I wanted to get away from home.”
Family“When I meet people who say - which they do all of the time - 'I must just tell you, my great aunt had cancer of the elbow and the doctors gave her 10 seconds to live, but last I heard she was climbing Mount Everest,' and so forth, I switch off quite early.”
Great“I don't think Romney is wacky at all, but religion makes intelligent people say and do wacky things, believe and affirm crazy things. Left on his own, Romney would never have said something like the Garden Of Eden was in Missouri, and will be again.”
Religion“I'm not particularly a feminist, but if you get women off the animal cycle of reproduction and give them some say in how many children they'll have, immediately the floor will rise.”
Women