Why obliterate the exceptional merely in order to make the outstanding look finer than it was?

Islam is unusual in that it's the only one of the great world religions which was born inside recorded history. That there's an enormous amount of factual historical record about the life of a prophet and about social conditions in Arabia at that time. So it's possible to look at the origin of Islam in a scholarly way.

When you throw everything up in the air anything becomes possible.

In television, the 60-minute series, 'The Wire' and 'Mad Men' and so on, the writer is the primary creative artist.

A sigh isn't just a sigh. We inhale the world and breathe out meaning. While we can. While we can.

I've never had very high regard for therapists. I owe my health, my mental survival, to my friends and loved ones.

You start at the stupid end of the book, and if you're lucky you finish at the smart end.