"Books choose their authors; the act of creation is not entirely a rational and conscious one."
— Salman Rushdie

"One ought to hold on to one's heart; for if one lets it go, one soon loses control of the head too."
— Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche

"When it is not in our power to determine what is true, we ought to follow what is most probable."
— René Descartes

"The passion for revenge should never blind you to the pragmatics of the situation. There are some people who are so blighted by their past, so warped by experience and the pull of that silken cord, that they never free themselves of the shadows that live in the time machine...

And if there is a kind thought due them, it may be found contained in the words of the late Gerald Kersh, who wrote:"... there are men whom one hates until a certain moment when one sees, through a chink in their armour, the writhing of something nailed down and in torment."
— Harlan Ellison (The Essential Ellison: A 50 Year Retrospective)

"Poor Hayduke: won all his arguments but lost his immortal soul."
— Edward Abbey (The Monkey Wrench Gang)

"...reason rationalizes reality for him (Dr. Nathan) as it does for the rest of us, in the Freudian sense of providing a more palatable or convenient explanation, and there are so many subjects about which we should not be reasonable."
— J.G. Ballard (The Atrocity Exhibition)

"You may substitute knowledge for superstition without satisfying the needs that drive people into superstition's arms."
— Susan Neiman (Moral Clarity: A Guide for Grown-Up Idealists)

"When confronted by a ‘believer’ it is easy for me to contrast the views of the skeptic with those of the rationalist. I simply reach into my pocket and pull out my change.

Holding a quarter aloft, I say, ‘This is a most remarkable coin, for it is heavier than all the sins of humanity committed since the beginning of the human race.’

I then hold up a nickel and say, ‘This coin is even more amazing, as it is brighter and shinier than the flames that proceeded from the Burning Bush discovered on Mt. Sinai by Moses.’

Then I raise a penny and state, ‘This portrait of President Lincoln is more realistic and true-to-life than any portrait of Satan ever painted.’

And finally, I hold out a bright, shiny dime and say, ‘And this dime is the most amazing of all because it is heavier and contains more precious metals than all the gold bricks in the streets of Heaven.’

I end with ‘Give to Caesar what is his, and hold the rest of it dear—for it is all you see and touch—and the Christian god can take care of all his things, for they amount to less than this 41 cents I hold here in my hand.’"
— Emanuel Haldeman-Julius