I love going to synagogue on Friday night and being swept in the melodies. Everyone seems more friendly and unburdened by the week and ready to be taken elsewhere.

I would advise anyone who is at the start of a rest ritual like the Sabbath, to take it slowly and grow incrementally into it. Recognize that it will be hard at first. It's a discipline but then it is a true and deep joy.

If our writing is worth anything at all, then we have to put ourselves into it.

I love space opera, and I believe that every sub-genre has potential no matter how old it is.

That's true of every form of literature - each writer brings new things to it because each of us is an individual.

I took to religion at about age 12; it was very hard for me to be Sabbath observant as a kid in a home which was not Sabbath observant. I think my parents thought the whole Jewish thing was a phase.

For me, study is a divine and daily imperative, and I study a page of Talmud daily so that I am not only teaching. My teaching is constantly being fed by my learning.