“As editor of the largest newspaper in West Virginia, I scan hundreds of reports daily . . . and I am amazed by the frequency with which religion causes people to kill each other. It is a nearly universal pattern, undercutting the common assumption that religion makes people kind and tolerant.”

“Religion can provide a check to my tendency to think that I am the center of the universe, that I know better than anyone about God, and that God speaks most clearly through me.”

“for what is religion if not a kind of madness, and what is madness without a touch of religion?”

“I learned to write because I am one of those people who somehow cannot manage the common communications of smiles and gestures, but must use words to get across things that other people would never need to say.”

“There's such a big difference between being dead and alive, I told myself, and the greatest sin a person can do to another is to take away that life. Next to that, all the rules and religions in the world are secondary; mere words and beliefs that people choose to believe and kill and hate by. My life won't be lived that way, and neither, I hope, will my children's.”

“The greatest gift that anyone can give anyone is LIFE. And the greatest sin a person can do is to take away that life. NEXT to that, all rules and religions in the worldare secondary, mere words and beliefs that people CHOOSE to believe and KILL and HATE by.”

“If people but knew their own religion, how tolerant they would become, and how free from any grudge against the religion of others.”