The arts are not a way to make a living. They are a very human way of making life more bearable.

What's going to happen is, very soon, we're going to run out of petroleum, and everything depends on petroleum. And there go the school buses. There go the fire engines. The food trucks will come to a halt. This is the end of the world.

All right - I'll tell you what you did for me: you went for happy, silly, beautiful walks with me.

We were all gun nuts and they were called varmints, crows were, because they ate grain and so did we.

A first grader should understand that her or his culture isn't a rational invention; that there are thousands of other cultures and they all work pretty well; that all cultures function on faith rather than truth; that there are lots of alternatives to our own society...Cultural relativity is defensible, attractive. It's a source of hope. It means we don't have to continue this way if we don't like it.

My ancestors were Freethinkers - and that's what I am, except we're called secular humanists now.

We are what we imagine ourselves to be.