There are many, many discrepant views within the Shia theology about what's the proper role of religion in society or in the State, should it rule now, should it claim to govern people in the here and now, or should it wait until the Messiah, the 12th Imam, comes back and would it only be then appropriate for religious rule to bring about a world of universal justice and vindication.

The thing about religion is that it's the first and the worst. The worst because it's the first.

Religion is part of the human make-up. It's also part of our cultural and intellectual history. Religion was our first attempt at literature, the texts, our first attempt at cosmology, making sense of where we are in the universe, our first attempt at health care, believing in faith healing, our first attempt at philosophy.

Forgotten were the elementary rules of logic, that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence and that what can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence.

I've had some dark nights of the soul, of course, but giving in to depression would be a sellout, a defeat.

How dismal it is to see present day Americans yearning for the very orthodoxy that their country was founded to escape.

I could not do what I do, and teach a class, and never miss a deadline, never be late for anything if I was a lush, OK? I would really love to read a piece that said, 'He is not a lush.' That would be fabulous, it would be a first, I could show it to people and say, 'Look!'