When I was growing up I was an atheist, then an agnostic, and then I had a good eight or ten years of being quite a serious Christian.

I like my coffee like I like my romantic partners: cold and bitter and prone to giving me anxiety attacks.

When Britney shaves off all her hair and beats paparazzi with umbrellas - that's what celebrities are supposed to do. They're not supposed to be reasonable, middle-aged guys drinking organic tea talking about semiotics.

And if we obey God, we must disobey ourselves, and it is in this disobeying ourselves, wherein the hardness of obeying God consists.

Sometimes people will think, I need to have pre-sanctioned spiritual joy. Getting joy from my contemplative meditation practice or getting joy from reading Thich Nhat Hahn books. Those things can be joyful but I think it’s the small, simple joys of playing with dogs or having sex with someone you love or going for a walk outside, stuff that we tend to ignore.

A few years ago, before I stopped drinking, I was feeling very sorry for myself and very drunk, and I Googled 'Moby Sucks'. In less than one second something like 20 million responses came up... yeah, there has been a lot of loathing directed towards me, and it used to drive me crazy.

I don't think I'm a particularly good writer, and I'm not terribly insightful.