If we try to hold on to our partial glimpses of the divine, we cut it down to our own size and close our minds. Like it or nor, our human experience of anything or anybody is always incomplete: there is usually something that eludes us, some portion of experience that evades our grasp.

From the Muslims I learned from the extraordinary pluralism of the Koran, the fact that the Koran endorses every single one of the major world faiths, but I was particularly enthralled by the Sufi tradition, the mystical tradition of Islam, which is so open to other religious faiths.

Compassion doesn't, of course, mean feeling sorry for people, or pity, which is how the word has become emasculated in a way.

...there is something wrong with any spirituality that does not inspire selfless concern for others

My study of religion, which I regard in many ways as an art form, is a search for meaning.

Religion is hard work. Its insights are not self-evident and have to be cultivated in the same way as an appreciation of art, music, or poetry must be developed.

But human beings fall easily into despair, and from the very beginning we invented stories that enabled us to place our lives in a larger setting, that revealed an underlying pattern, and gave us a sense that, against all the depressing and chaotic evidence to the contrary, life had meaning and value.