Every Day is an Atheist Holiday!

THANKS

It might have been a mistake to tell my wife, Emily, that I felt that my editor, Sarah Hochman, understood me better than anyone in the world. I meant, you know, outside of my family. You know, professionally. I’ve made that clear now. It was Sarah’s idea for this book—thanks, Sarah, and to all the Blue Rider and Penguin people. Thanks to my agent, Steve Fisher, for doing the wheeling and dealing. I would have written the book for free.

Robbie Libbon has been my dear friend for my entire adult life. He makes sure the Penn & Teller show goes up every night and he read this book over and over, gave a zillion suggestions and helped Sarah figure out what the fuck I was trying to write about and shared the burden of taking out all those commas. I think someone told me sometime that “but” was supposed to always have a comma after it. Fuck public schools.

Lana Strong is a buddy who’s read all my other books a little too carefully, so I could send her each of these hunks and ask her if I’d written any of the stuff already in another book. I often can’t tell what I think and say from what I write—she can.

I love Spicoli, but it’s our co-manager Peter Golden who really has my heart.

Glenn Alai runs everything that Penn & Teller and/or Penn and/or Teller do. If he only had good-looking clients, he’d make Colonel Parker look like a slacker. Glenn can do anything. He could have written this book, but he was busy with other things.

I want to thank everyone who is mentioned in this book. Thanks for letting me in your lives. When that whole weird Chick-fil-A gay thang happened (remember that), I called Clay Aiken and asked him if we could make out together at a Chick-fil-A near him. He laughed. That would have been a real photo op. Yup, I make fun of Clay, but you know… I like him. Same with Donald Trump. Well, not the same with Donald Trump. Nope, not exactly the same with Donald Trump—for the love of fuck, get rid of that birther shit—but keep the hair. I love stupid hair.

Teller—you all know, and he knows better.

I can sum up this whole book with three short names—EZ, Mox, and Zz. My family gives me the love and joy to make every day an atheist holiday. They taught me what it means to cry with happiness. I never understood that before these guys.

Bob sang, “It frightens me the awful truth of how sweet life can be.”

EZ

Mox

Zz

They made me feel that. Love minus zero, no limit.