Teasing Is Very Often A Sign Of

I Have No Time To Waste On This Planet Being Told What To Do By Those Who Think That God Has Given Them Instructions.

You Don't Say 'they All Do It' Unless You Know You've Been Doing It Too.

Avoid Stock Expressions (like The Plague, As William Safire Used To Say) And Repetitions. Don't Say That As A Boy Your Grandmother Used To Read To You, Unless At That Stage Of Her Life She Really Was A Boy, In Which Case You Have Probably Thrown Away A Better Intro. If Something Is Worth Hearing Or Listening To, It's Very Probably Worth Reading. So, This Above All: Find Your Own Voice.

It Ought To Be An Offense To Be Excruciating And Unfunny In Circumstances Where Your Audience Is Almost Morally Obliged To Enthuse.

Let Me Tell You Something: For Hundreds Of Thousands Of Years, This Kind Of Discussion Would Have Been Impossible To Have, Or Those Like Us Would Have Been Having It At The Risk Of Our Lives. Religion Now Comes To Us In This Smiley-face, Ingratiating Way — Because It’s Had To Give So Much More Ground And Because We Know So Much More. But You’ve Got No Right To Forget The Way It Behaved When It Was Strong, And When It Really Did Believe That It Had God On Its Side.