The people who seem to have a lock on power get swept out in a couple of years. So it's naïve to keep swinging at the same targets over and over. It took me a long time to realize, but most of the shackles that I flailed against were just illusory.

As a writer you sometimes feel the need to shake things up.

I guess I'm drawn to religion because I can be provocative without harming something people really care about, like their cars.

Instead of three networks you have three hundred or three thousand. Audiences are inundated with programming, and that sometimes gives them a sense of petulant entitlement.

When people have no interest in a subject, it's very hard to get them to laugh about it. If I had to write ten jokes about potholders, I don't think I could do it. But I could write ten jokes about Catholicism in the next twenty minutes.

I don't like the antagonism that most religions have for science, and freedom and, frankly, individuality. I do like the Dalai Lama.

I resisted parenthood for a long, long time. But having a daughter has given me a sense of hopefulness that I didn't have before.