Places where one can experience some of that separation from the world of the familiar, to defamiliarize ourselves with what we take for granted and enter into the ebb and flow of another culture, it certainly is one of the more valuable things that we do as human beings.

I do think that the U.S. has an opportunity as a democracy to really exemplify what a religiously diverse society can be when it embraces the pluralism.

I was a young woman who had grown up in the mountains of Montana as a Protestant Methodist in a pretty good social gospel tradition. I became fascinated with the religious lives of others who seemed also to be very religious, yet in ways that were quite different from my own. That fascination led to relationships, in India and elsewhere, with families of Hindus, of Muslims, of Sikhs, and a lot of study.

The issue of "who we are" has been an ongoing one. It's part of the ongoing identity crisis of America.

The idea that the United States government would have to figure out what to do about the headscarf is simply ludicrous. We don't get involved in that.

When immigrants come, the freedom to practice their faith is a guarantee. They may have trouble with their neighbors, but freedom of religion is part of the blueprint for America, and that is the recipe for the religious diversity that we have today.

There are two great things that we need to find in life: one is love, probably the most important, and the second is work, and they compete with one another from time to time.