"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 don't think it's possible to have a sense of tragedy without having a sense of humor."
"How dismal it is to see present day Americans yearning for the very orthodoxy that their country was founded to escape."
"If you gave [Jerry] Falwell an enema he could be buried in a matchbox."
"Do I fear death? No, I am not afraid of being dead because there's nothing to be afraid of, I won't know it. I fear dying, of dying I feel a sense of waste about it and I fear a sordid death, where I am incapacitated or imbecilic at the end which isn't something to be afraid of, it's something to be terrified of."
"Everybody does have a book in them, but in most cases that's where it should stay."