I listen to Bach a great deal. In general I like to listen to hymns and liturgical music.

For me writing has always felt like praying even when I wasn't writing prayers.

Love is holy because it is like grace--the worthiness of its object is never really what matters.

Anybody who has read any biblical scholarship knows that every scholar struggles over completely intractable problems with the original texts, or what they have to work from. It's one of the great, powerful, mysterious objects that have come down through history. This does not translate into literal interpretation for me.

He will wipe the tears from all faces.' It takes nothing from the loveliness of the verse to say that is exactly what will be required

The great truth that is too often forgotten is that it is in the nature of people to do good to one another.

To recognize our bias toward error should teach us modesty and reflection, and to forgive it should help us avoid the inhumanity of thinking we ourselves are not as fallible as those who, in any instance, seem most at fault. Science can give us knowledge, but it cannot give us wisdom. Nor can religion, until it puts aside nonsense and distraction and becomes itself again.