I have no right by anything I do or say to demean a human being in his own eyes. What matters is not what I think of him it is what he thinks of himself. To undermine a man's self-respect is a sin.

I'm not concerned with your liking or disliking me... All I ask is that you respect me as a human being.

I've been a little bit obsessed with religion without being a religious person for about a decade.

So I remember both medicine because I frequently sick particularly with asthma for which there was no proper treatment then and in religion I had a strong sense of there being a patriarchy.

I have quite a few different Bibles. Having rejected my parents' religion I still think the King James Bible is the most important work of literature in English. None of us can help being influenced by it.

All human beings have an innate need to hear and tell stories and to have a story to live by. religion whatever else it has done has provided one of the main ways of meeting this abiding need.

What I miss today more than anything else - I don't go to church as much anymore - but that old-time religion that old singing that old praying which I love so much. That is the great strength of my being of my writing.

That means that every human being - without distinction of sex age race skin color language religion political view or national or social origin - possesses an inalienable and untouchable dignity.

We are pre-disposed for fantasy there is a natural impulse for human beings to want to get off their heads or out of their heads in something in a substance or a drink or an idea or a religion which will comfort them and make life exciting.

I'm still a person a human being no matter what religion I am.