“I don't think it's possible to have a sense of tragedy without having a sense of humor.”
Humor“I used to wish there was a useful term for those of us who thought American power should be used to remove psychopathic dictators.”
Power“I don't think it's possible to have a sense of tragedy without having a sense of humor.”
Humor“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“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“I used to wish there was a useful term for those of us who thought American power should be used to remove psychopathic dictators.”
Power“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“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“Religion is compulsory in English schools, you know.”
Religion“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“Well, to the people who pray for me to not only have an agonising death, but then be reborn to have an agonising and horrible eternal life of torture, I say, 'Well, good on you. See you there.'”
Death“There's been some research in cognitive science, I'm told, that discloses that there have always been perhaps 10 to 15 percent of people who are, as Pascal puts it, so made that they cannot believe. To us, when people talk about faith, it's white noise.”
Faith“I don't envy or much respect people who are completely politicised.”
Respect“To terrify children with the image of hell... to consider women an inferior creation. Is that good for the world?”
Women“'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“Ronald Reagan said that he sought a Star Wars defense only in order to share the technology with the tyrants of the U.S.S.R.”
Technology“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“Trust is not the same as faith. A friend is someone you trust. Putting faith in anyone is a mistake.”
Faith“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'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