I can only give away the love that I have received.

The biblical texts that we Christians have used for centuries to justify our hostility toward the Jews need to be banished forever from the sacred writings of the Christian church.

The Bible is full of dreadful things. There's a Psalm that says "Happy will you be when you take your enemy's children and dash their heads against the stones." Don't read that to me on Sunday morning and say "This is the word of the Lord." It's like that crazy man down in Alabama who wanted to put the Ten Commandments in his courtroom.

The right to a good death is a basic human freedom. The [2006-JAN] Supreme Court's decision to uphold aid in dying allows us to view and act on death as a dignified moral and godly choice for those suffering with terminal illnesses.

I don't make that decision [what next book will be] until I've read enough to know that I've got something different to say and I know how to say it.

I know that Arnold Toynby, the great historian, said he had always hoped the religions of the world would evolve until they began to bring the very best of each tradition into one tradition. He hoped that Christianity would be the one religion that finally incorporated the values of Hinduism and Buddhism, and enriched itself with them.

[Jew] didn't believe anything good could come out of a Jewish study. So, what has happened is anti-Semitism has cost the Jews their lives and their property. It's also cost the Christians the ability to read the old gospels, which are deeply, deeply Jewish, and to bring that out is a pretty exciting thing. I'm having a wonderful time with that. I'm just not near ready to do much with it.