Penn Jillette

"What I have a problem with is not so much religion or god, but faith. When you say you believe something in your heart and therefore you can act on it, you have completely justified the 9/11 bombers. You have justified Charlie Manson. If it's true for you, why isn't it true for them? Why are you different? If you say I believe there's an all-powerful force of love in the universe that connects us all, and I have no evidence of that but I believe it in my heart, then it's perfectly okay to believe in your heart that Sharon Tate deserves to die. It's perfectly okay to believe in your heart that you need to fly planes into buildings for Allah."

"Nobody that has seen a baby born can believe in god for a second. When you see your child born, and the panic, and the amount of technology that is saving the life of the two people you love most in the world, when you see how much stainless steel and money it takes to fight off the fact that god wants both those people dead, no one, no one can look into the eyes of a newborn baby and say there's a god, because I'll tell ya, if we were squatting in the woods, the two people I love most would be dead. There's just no way around that. If I were in charge, no way. We need technology to fight against nature; nature so wants us dead. Nature is trying to kill us."

"This is going to sound horrible, but I don't even know how much I make in a year. It must be, you know, a couple of million dollars, a few million. I know it's more money than my dad, a jail guard, made in his lifetime; more money than I'll ever need."

"I'm a hardcore libertarian - I want everything legal - but I also believe that you have the right to free association."

"I've never revved my car at a light for an attractive woman or an auto-rival, not even as a joke."

"To drive a car in rural America is freedom. Before I had a car, I'd never seen a rock and roll show, I'd never seen a comic or a show."

"My hair is way, way long. I've hitchhiked across the country a zillion times. I've ridden in every car. I was never a hippie. It takes more than long hair."

"Cars mean nothing to me. I'm not a car guy."

"We need a president who realizes that there's no government business in show business."

"My mom, if you asked her if she was interested in whether or not people gambled, would say no."

"I'm not bothered by the idea of getting old, or I guess you could say by having arrived at old. I was 10 when my mom turned 55. For 1955, she was a very old mom."

"My body really, really wanted to reproduce when I was 15. It took a lot of civilization, socialization, willpower and some emulsion polymerization technology for me not to reproduce at 15."

"For the most part, any serious magic show is not using very much technology newer than theatrical lights."

"Technology adds nothing to art."

"I'm totally against straight marriage - even though I'm married. I don't think heterosexual marriage is any of the government's business."

"I will not counter the insanity of the PATRIOT Act with an overblown fear of my rights being taken away."

"Counterintuitive actions prove we can trust real knowledge and do the opposite of what we feel makes sense."

"I don't want anyone as president who promises to take care of me. I may be stupid, but I want a chance to try to be a grown-up and take care of my family."

"If you like the stuff I do, my chances of liking you go up."

"Direct confrontation, direct conversation is real respect. And it's amazing how many people get that."