I think that a lot of us, whether we are religious or not - there are no words to express some things except religious words. For instance, 'soul.'

Sometimes when you finish a book, you don't know quite what you've got.

It matters, it always matters, to name rubbish as rubbish; that to do otherwise is to legitimize it.

Sometimes, people trying to commit suicide manage it in a manner that leaves them breathless with astonishment.

thought I was doing two things. One is inquiring into the phenomenon of revelation, if you are not a religious person. But, clearly, it's a sincere phenomenon.

And using that - the birth of a religion, it suggests that you have got two tests. You have the test of weakness. When you're weak, do you compromise, do you bend, do you give in, do you accommodate? And then the test of strength. When you're strong, are you merciful, are you generous, or are you cruel?

Memory has its own special kind. It selects, eliminates, alters, exaggerates, minimizes, glorifies, and vilifies also; but in the end it creates its own reality, its heterogeneous but usually coherent version of events; and no sane human being ever trusts someone else's version more than his own.