“New York is the one place in the world that actively encourages rudeness, because that's the only way to get past the fake bag carriers, homeless people, newspaper thieves, Jesus freaks, and everyone else who wants something and isn't afraid to ask for it, repeatedly, at close range.”

“Religion is still the very best way to get someone to accept something unabashedly ridiculous.”

“Impending death makes one run faster. I think that's probably why they fire a gun before track meets.”

“The thing is, we all have a little animal in us, and if you ask us to, we can do a very good job of behaving like one.”

“I'm a pretty sad example of what one should do with eternal life. I've never reached any higher level of consciousness, I don't have access to any great truths, and I've never borne witness to the divine or transcendent. Some of this is just bad luck. Like working in the fishing industry in Galilee and never once running into Jesus.”

“[T]he truth is the percentage of vampires that are also evil killers is about the same as the percentage of normal people who are also evil killers.”

“...while there may have been gods, they weren't particularly well defined. If, for instance, something unusually lucky happened, one might declare that a god--pick one--was feeling generous that day. And if a particularly bad thing happened, a god (usually a different one) was upset about something or other. Gods, in other words, were what most of us would now call chance or luck. And in that sense they served their purpose, by making a random existence seem less random.”