Writing takes a combination of sophistication and innocence; it takes conscience, our belief that something is beautiful because it is right.

Over the eons I've been a fan of, and sucker for, each latest automated system to 'simplify' and 'bring order to' my life. Very early on this led me to the beautiful-and-doomed Lotus Agenda for my DOS computers, and Actioneer for the early Palm.

James Fallows

When I told the people of Northern Ireland that I was an atheist, a woman in the audience stood up and said, 'Yes, but is it the God of the Catholics or the God of the Protestants in whom you don't believe?

Quentin Crisp

The double hundred Fowler hit in the Madras Test was an absolute beauty.

David Gower

I am determined that my children shall be brought up in their father's religion, if they can find out what it is.

Charles Lamb

I enjoy celebrating Valentine's Day. It's a nice way to say you're thinking about your family, someone special, or dear friends.

Camila Alves

There are, after all, atheists who say they wish the fable were true but are unable to suspend the requisite disbelief, or who have relinquished belief only with regret. To this I reply: who wishes that there was a permanent, unalterable celestial despotism that subjected us to continual surveillance and could convict us of thought-crime, and who regarded us as its private property even after we died? How happy we ought to be, at the reflection that there exists not a shred of respectable evidence to support such a horrible hypothesis.

Christopher Hitchens

Nothing is softer or more flexible than water, yet nothing can resist it.

Lao Tzu

If we wish to draw philosophical conclusions about our own existence, our significance, and the significance of the universe itself, our conclusions should be based on empirical knowledge. A truly open mind means forcing our imaginations to conform to the evidence of reality, and not vice versa, whether or not we like the implications.

Lawrence M. Krauss

I certainly saw science as a kind of calling, and one with as much legitimacy as a religious calling.

Joshua Lederberg

Fortune's fool! How we humans lie upon beauty like lizards upon a sun-baked rock.

Roman Payne

I will act as if what I do makes a difference.

William James

He is a fine friend. He stabs you in the front.

Leonard Louis Levinson