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.

One of my professors said to me once, "Any god that can be killed off will be killed, but if I can shake up your faith in your god, it means you already don't have much of a god."

Some people think prayer is telling God what to do. I don't think that's the case.

The Bible interprets life from its particular perspective; it does not record in a factual way the human journey through history.

If you're going to live in a community, you have to refrain from killing one another and stealing from one another. You must have honor and honesty in your dealings with one another. But I think the deeper thing that we need to do is to become so fully human that we don't grasp at life; we give life away. We give love away. We give being away. That is the ultimate work of religion.

I think that anything that begins to give people a sense of their own worth and dignity is God.

We have a democracy within the bounds of a constitution which provides certain guarantees related to the basic humanity of every person. I think that's the best way to go.