“The amazing fact is that America is founded on a document. It's a work in progress. It can be tested by each generation.”
Amazing“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“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“There are people who cannot forget, as neither do I, the lesson of the years of the Indochina War. Which was, first, that the state is capable of being a murderer. A mass murderer, and a conspirator and a liar.”
War“In the grip of a neurological disorder, I am fast losing control of words even as my relationship with the world has been reduced to them.”
Relationship“To 'choose' dogma and faith over doubt and experience is to throw out the ripening vintage and to reach greedily for the Kool-Aid.”
Experience“Religion is compulsory in English schools, you know.”
Religion“I don't think it's possible to have a sense of tragedy without having a sense of humor.”
Humor“The penalty for getting mugged in an American city and losing your ID is that you can't fly home.”
Home“Well, I'm in my 60s now. I finally look it, I think. 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“'Bombing Afghanistan back into the Stone Age' was quite a favourite headline for some wobbly liberals. The slogan does all the work. But an instant's thought shows that Afghanistan is being, if anything, bombed out of the Stone Age.”
Age“A lot of people, because of my contempt for the false consolations of religion, think of me as a symbolic public opponent of that in extremis. And sometimes that makes me feel a bit alarmed, to be the repository of other people's hope.”
Hope“Well, I'll put it this way: you can certainly say belief in God makes people behave worse. That can be proved beyond a doubt.”
God“It's surprising to me how many of my friends send Christmas cards, or holiday cards, including my atheist and secular friends.”
Christmas“To terrify children with the image of hell... to consider women an inferior creation. Is that good for the world?”
Women“Well, we can't say any more than we can say there is no god, there is no afterlife. We can only say there is no persuasive evidence for or argument for it.”
God“I have more than once in my time woken up feeling like death.”
Death“For most of my life I let women do the driving and was happy to let them.”
Women“High moral character is not a precondition for great moral accomplishments.”
Great“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“If you look at any Muslim society and you make a scale of how developed they are, and how successful the economy is, it's a straight line. It depends on how much they emancipate their women.”
Society