Sometimes people have said that Islam, in its own calendar, is still only in the Middle Ages. It's still in the fifteenth century or whatever. And Christianity in the fifteenth century, after all, was full of inquisitions and burnings at the stake, and so on and so on. So give Islam time, and it will reach the point of maturity that other religions have. But Mormonism is much younger than Islam, and it's got there already. So I don't think that's an argument that works.

War used to be something you could stand on the nearby hill and watch. Now we have total war; everybody's in it. We have total economics as well. Everything affects everybody. The Malaysian currency shakes, and people around the world are seriously affected.

I'll tell you what divorce hasn't taught me. It didn't teach me not to get married again.

You don't fight radical conservatism with not-quite-so radical conservatism.

Bread and books: food for the body and food for the soul - what could be more worthy of our respect, and even love?

Originality is dangerous. It challenges, questions, overturns assumptions, unsettles moral codes.

When we stop believing in the gods we can start believing in their stories.