“Conscientious objection is a universally established right; I think that sometimes the problem is how it is understood or put into practice. Doctors and nurses have the right to have their moral, spiritual, and personal convictions respected, but never in detriment to or contempt of anyone.”

Act 1, p. 40.
Forty Years On (1972)

Appendix 2, p. 149
Evening Thoughts

Source: Speech to the Police Federation conference in Eastbourne (18 May 1976) regarding the Federation's campaign on law and order, quoted in The Times (19 May 1976), p. 5

Twitter post https://twitter.com/McCormickProf/status/964228974422515712 (15 February 2018)
2018

I Ain't Got Time To Bleed (1999)
Context: I'd like to clarify my comments about religious people being weak-minded. I didn't mean all religious people. I don't have any problem with the vast majority of religious folks. I count myself among them, more or less. But I believe because it makes sense to me, not because I think it can be proven. There are lots of people out there who think they know the truth about God and religion, but does anybody really know for sure? That's why the founding fathers built freedom of religious belief into the structure of this nation, so that everybody could make up their minds for themselves.
But I do have a problem with the people who think they have some right to try to impose their beliefs on others. I hate what the fundamentalist fanatics are doing to our country. It seems as though, if everybody doesn't accept their version of reality, that somehow invalidates it for them. Everybody must believe the same things they do. That's what I find weak and destructive.

Speech to Conservative Party Conference (9 October 1987) http://www.margaretthatcher.org/speeches/displaydocument.asp?docid=106941
Third term as Prime Minister

"The Persistence of Vision", The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction (March 1978), reprinted as the title story in The Persistence of Vision (1978)