In fact I am quite snappy and irritable and I don't know if I'd like to make myself worse in that respect.

I think that people who live in cultures without quite so much privilege opportunity or grandiosity have a little bit more respect for the workings of destiny and the limitations that people can find themselves in through no fault of their own.

I thought perhaps it should be recognized that religious people including fundamentalists are quite intelligent many of them are highly educated and they should be treated with complete respect.

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.

When I'm not writing I read loads of fiction but I've been writing quite constantly lately so I've been reading a lot of nonfiction - philosophy religion science history social or cultural studies.

I mean I went to a Catholic boys' school for a year but that was to play hockey. Religion class was quite contentious for me.

If you are part of a religion that very strongly insists that you believe then to decide not to do that is quite a big hurdle to jump over. You never forget the thought process you went through. It becomes part of your whole intellectual picture.

I say quite deliberately that the Christian religion as organized in its Churches has been and still is the principal enemy of moral progress in the world.

I have quite a robust relationship with regret. You simply don't know what the alternative would have been.

Well I think if you really go out with someone for quite a long time you do get to know each other very very well you go through the good times you go through the bad times. You know both personally but also within a relationship as well.