Perhaps the most remarkable thing I found about the Bible was how flexible it is. Here we have a book written 3,000 years ago, with bizarre stories, peculiar laws, erratic deity, and yet we are able - through argument, selective reading, and desire - to find a powerful framework of laws and moral reasoning that have built a very successful society. So this Bible, for all its oddities and flaws, serves us beautifully after all these years.

When you're writing for the New York Times someone reading it knows the topic better than you do and knows when you've messed up.

One problem with how we think about the Bible is that people tend to jam it into narrower categories, when in fact it is many things all at once.

People found it unusual to leave a job where you're the boss.

I want to have enough space to, I don't know, think thoughts. I mean, I just - I don't know that I'm capable of having an exciting, profound thought every week that's worth a column.

I think I developed a culture of healthy skepticism of claims of certainty on any side of the aisle. A sort of boldness in using economics no matter where it leads you in political circles, you know, rather than worrying about being left-wing or right-wing or biased or this or that.

I'm going to have a project-based life rather than a job-based life.