The reason 'help' is such a great prayer is that God is the gift of desperation. When you're in despair, you're teachable.

You can safely assume that you've created God in your own image when it turns out that God hates all the same people you do.

Being on a book tour is like being on the seesaw when you're a little kid. The excitement is in having someone to play with, and in rising up in the air, but then you're at the mercy of those holding you down, and if it's your older brother, or Paul Wolfowitz, they leap up, so that you crash down and get hurt.

The problem with God - or at any rate, one of the top five most annoying things about God - is that he or she rarely answers right away.

I was raised by my parents to believe that you had a moral obligation to try and save the world. You sent money to the Red Cross, you registered people to vote, you marched in rallies, stood in vigils, picked up litter.

I don't see myself as a deep philosopher. The things I write about tend to be what we all have to face, or consider, or experience, that I talk about with my friends and brothers. It's universal stuff, told in my own voice, my own details and truth, which is all I have to offer.

For some of us, good books and beautiful writing are our ultimate solace, even more comforting than exquisite food.