"The violence of language consists in its effort to capture the ineffable and, hence, to destroy it, to seize hold of that which must remain elusive for language to operate as a living thing."

"A God out there and values out there, if they existed, would be utterly useless and unintelligible to us. There is nothing to be gained by nostalgia for the old objectivism, which was in any case used only to justify arrogance, tyranny, and cruelty. People [forget] ... How utterly hateful the old pre-humanitarianism world was."

"Nevertheless, there is another threat on the horizon. I see this threat in environmentalism which is becoming a new dominant ideology, if not a religion. Its main weapon is raising the alarm and predicting the human life endangering climate change based on man-made global warming."

"The practical reality is that any present-tense version of the world is unstable. What we currently consider to be true--both objectively and subjectively--is habitually provisional."

"I'm not a clever man, but I'm willing to listen to people who are, and I think you are. Just don't try poking me in the direction you want me to go. I don't like that Master Balwer."

"Through it all, we attempt to bring balance to the present moment,understanding that in patience lies wisdom,knowing that what will come next will be determined in large measure by how we are now."

"The things she said seemed to have very little relation to the last thing she had said a minute before. She was the sort of person, Tommy thought, who might know a great deal more than she chose to reveal."