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.

I hope when I'm on my deathbed, people forgive me, because there is a lot to forgive.

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.

I would rather be held in contempt than support such a scandalous outcome. I won't testify if it's just against (Blumenthal), ... The point is (that) the president made sure, some way or another, that the story got into print. It was a threat against a potential witness -- a very vulgar and crude one, very typical of his modus operandi.

No school of philosophy has ever solved this question of whether being determines consciousness or the other way around. It may be a false antithesis.

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.