Nick

“Do you hope you can expiate the crimes of the past by suffering in the present?”
― J.M. Coetzee, Disgrace

“I am not even an atheist so much as an antitheist; I not only maintain that all religions are versions of the same untruth, but I hold that the influence of churches and the effect of religious belief, is positively harmful. Reviewing the false claims of religion I do not wish, as some sentimental materialists affect to wish, that they were true. I do not envy believers their faith. I am relieved to think that the whole story is a sinister fairy tale; life would be miserable if what the faithful affirmed was actually true.... There may be people who wish to live their lives under cradle-to-grave divine supervision, a permanent surveillance and monitoring. But I cannot imagine anything more horrible or grotesque.”
― Christopher Hitchens

“For the average American freedom of speech is simply the freedom to repeat what everyone else is saying and no more.”
― Gore Vidal, Burr

“I worry about anthropomorphism as a form of self-deception. (The Christian religion is an anthropomorphic account of the universe.)”
― A.S. Byatt