The Koran shows every sign of being thrown together by human beings, as do all the other holy books.

My dear wife has, I would say, probably never opened a religious book, and seems to be one of those people to whom the whole idea is utterly remote and absurd.

Well, I'll put it this way: you can certainly say belief in God makes people behave worse. That can be proved beyond a doubt.

Cancer victimhood contains a permanent temptation to be self-centred and even solipsistic.

I don't think souls or bodies can be changed by incantation. Or anything else by the way.

Not many people come through esophageal cancer and live to talk about it, or not for long.

I became a journalist because one didn't have to specialise.

I still make sure to go, at least once every year, to a country where things cannot be taken for granted, and where there is either too much law and order or too little.

I'm terrified of losing my voice.

If you can talk, you can write.

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'd always somehow felt slightly as if I'd been born in the wrong country.

I have nowhere claimed nor even implied that unbelief is a guarantee of good conduct or even an indicator of it.

Of course, I do everything for money.

I wanted to write.

I joined a small but growing post-Trotskyite Luxembourgist sect.

Well look, I mean, I think that prayer and holy water, and things like that are all fine. They don't do any good, but they don't necessarily do any harm. It's touching to be thought of in that way. It makes up for those who tell me that I've got my just desserts.

And when I was young, my family was perfectly nice. I write a lot about it, as you noticed. But it was rather limited. I think, I don't think anyone in my family would really feel I'd done them an injustice by saying that. We didn't see many people. There were many books. It was as if I wanted to get away from home.

Beautiful sentences pop into my head. Beautiful sentences that aren't always absolutely accurate. Then, I have to choose between the beautiful sentence and being absolutely accurate. It can be a difficult choice.

You can only have one aim per debate.

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.

It's surprising to me how many of my friends send Christmas cards, or holiday cards, including my atheist and secular friends.

I don't think the war in Afghanistan was ruthlessly enough waged.

The worst days are when you feel foggy in the head - chemo-brain they call it. It's awful because you feel boring. As well as bored. And stupid. And resigned.