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.

I think I did 97 pitch meetings, and even at the 97th meeting, there were questions I was getting that I hadn't had in the - you know, any of the 96 preceding ones.

I do think students in public school (and private) should be required to study the Bible. [...] As a matter of pure education, it's shocking that we [the americans] are not compelled to learn the book, which is the source of our language, our common stories, our political structure, our conflicts.

Any suggestion that Mexicans are fundamentally different from Americans should be taken as racist on its face; America, after all, is a pluralistic society, and Mexico is hardly the alien civilization that some (really, just Samuel Huntington) would suggest.

You live in a society that is shaped in every possible way by the Bible. The language you use, the laws you obey (and disobey), the founding principles of your nation, the disputes about abortion, homosexuality, adultery - these and so much else in your world are rooted in the Bible. You don't have to read it for its truth value. You should read it to understand how your world got the way it is, the way you would read the constitution or Shakespeare.

The process of just being in front of people, having to stand up for your ideas, and ask - and then ask people for money, which is a very hard thing to do.

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