137 quotes
One must state it plainly. Religion comes from the period of human prehistory where nobody—not even the mighty Democritus who concluded that all matter was made from atoms—had the smallest idea what was going on.
God is not Great (2007)
We are not occupying Afghanistan, we are there as guests of a government, at their request.
The death toll is not nearly high enough... too many [jihadists] have escaped.
Remember that it is 'free-thinking Jews,' not Jews as such, who are defined as the undesirables by T.S. Eliot in "After Strange Gods".
Mockery of religion is one of the most essential things... one of the beginnings of human emancipation is the ability to laugh at authority.
The essence of the independent mind lies not in what it thinks, but in how it thinks.
Letters to a Young Contrarian (2001)
My chief consolation in this year of living dyingly has been the presence of friends.
Mortality (2012)
I became a journalist because I did not want to rely on newspapers for information.
An old definition of a gentleman: someone who is never rude except on purpose.
Letters to a Young Contrarian (2001)
Did we not aid the grisly Taliban to achieve and hold power? Yes indeed 'we' did. Well, does that not double or triple our responsibility to remove them from power?
One could happily make a case that more random civilians, and fewer fucking lawyers, should be on the court. But the only other thing to say about Miers is that she is a fucking lawyer.
There is no longer any official froideur. But there's no official - what's the word? - chaleur, either.
Many of Kissinger's most extreme acts have been undertaken, at least ostensibly, in the name of anti-Communism.
The Trial of Henry Kissinger (2012)
...those who say I am being punished are saying that god can't think of anything more vengeful than cancer for a heavy smoker.
Mortality (2012)
My challenge is really to say, 'Can you name me a moral action or a statement that has been made by a believer that couldn't have been made by a non-believer?
Will an Iraq war make our Al Qaeda problem worse? Not likely.
We have preachers and savants who dilate endlessly on the sanctity of family and childhood but who tolerate a system in which a casual observer can correlate a child's social origin with its physical well-being.
For the Sake of Argument: Essays and Minority Reports (1993)
That phrase, "loss of innocence," has become stale with overuse and diminishing returns; no other culture is so addicted to this narcissistic impression of itself as having any innocence to lose in the first place.
Unacknowledged Legislation: Writers in the Public Sphere (2000)
Forgotten were the elementary rules of logic, that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence and that what can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence.
I don't think the war in Afghanistan was ruthlessly enough waged.