There are bursts of things like Abraham Lincoln or Ronald Reagan or Franklin Delano Roosevelt or same-sex marriage that change very much what we thought we were all about.

The hero of the beloved Star Wars trilogy is Luke. The principle dynamic is the complicated relationship between Luke and his father. Not coincidentally, George Lucas' last name sounds a lot like Luke. That's the one he identified with. George Lucas had a tumultuous relationship with his own father, and people who know him say that you can't understand the backstory of the movies without knowing that his dad was occasionally difficult but also very loving. They had a big break between them. In those movies, he's very focused on sons and fathers.

Catholicism is a wide tent in terms of political and legal positions. We could have nine Catholics on the Supreme Court and a great deal of diversity toward the law.

The fear of loss is an engine of horrors, but also a source of the greatest forms of heroism. There's not a lot of art that puts that in bold letters. It's psychologically very interesting and acute, I think. That's not the central reading, I think, of the New Testament.

Faust seems to have exerted a big influence on Star Wars. You know, the "give up your soul for immortality" or something.

I think that every state in the union should recognize same-sex marriage.

My friend jewelry designer Courtney Crangi has been obsessed with Star Wars all her life and has seen the movies 150 times. When we first started talking about it, I was amazed that her knowledge made mine - which was even then pretty impressive - seem pathetic. And I think there are a couple of reasons for this. One is that the leader of the rebellion is Princess Leia. American theatergoers had never seen a princess like that. She's not a delicate flower, she's not passive, she's often the only one who has a clue.