The answer to religion is not no religion, but another way of thinking of it. Another way of being in it.

To see things plainly, you have to cross a frontier.

Science fiction is where I started out, really. When I was a kid, I was a complete addict of science fiction. It was one of my earliest interests as a writer, and I've just taken a long time to circle back around to it.

You don't that often see writers being sought out when there are matters of great moment to discuss. And I think that's a loss.

Prophet Mohammed would have no objection to The Satanic Verses.

People don't like being around despair. Our tolerance for the truly hopeless, for those who are irredeemably broken by life is strictly limited. The sob stories we like are the ones that end before we're bored.

What I've always tried to find in my books are points at which the private lives of the characters, and also my own, intersect with the public life of the culture.