The interesting thing for me is, if that had been a left-wing person raising questions, [President Obama] probably would have expressed his anger. Because Obama really does get upset about progressives.

The challenge artists face today is whether to be an underground, unheard genius, or to dilute their art for the marketplace.

I always felt called to serve, to empower and ennoble as many people as I could, teaching, truth-telling, exposing lies, bearing witness, and being willing to live and die for something bigger than yourself.

To be a Christian is to live dangerously, honestly, freely - to step in the name of love as if you may land on nothing, yet to keep on stepping because the something that sustains you no empire can give you and no empire can take away.

Courage is the enabling virtue for any philosopher - for any human being, I think, in the end. Courage to think, courage to love, courage to hope.

To get up in the morning & do the monumental tasks that face us, our labor is best fueled by love.

I have tried to be a man of letters in love with ideas in order to be a wiser and more loving person, hoping to leave the world just a little better than I found it.