14 Quotes by Paul Torday

I argued that such an approach stood logic on its head. All disasters, all loss, all suffering, demonstrate that there cannot possibly be a God, for why would a deity who is omnipotent create a universe so prone to disaster and accident? Religious faith, I argued, was invented in order to pacify the grieving multitudes and ensure they did not ask the really difficult questions, which if answered, would tend to lead to progress.

He believes that the salmon and its long journey through endless oceans back to its home river is, in some strange way, a symbol of his own journey to become closer to his God. You know, a few hundred years ago, the sheikh might have been called a saint, if there are saints in Islam?

I am sailing in uncharted water and my old life is a distant shore, still visible through the haze of retrospection but receding to a grey line on the horizon.

We have got ethical in so many places I begin to wish I had not given up geography at school.

We are the rational managers of a modern democracy, taking the optimum decisions to safeguard and enhance the lives of busy citizens who haven’t got the time to work things out for themselves.