It is often said by religious people that without its framework, there is no sense of right or wrong. My view is that religion comes after ethics.

Believe in your own eyes and you'll get into a lot of trouble, hot water, a mess.

History could claw upward as well as down. The powerful could be deafened by the cries of the poor.

Rock n' roll was a kid when I was a kid.

Our lives teach us who we are.

Islam doesn't have to mean blind faith. It can mean what it always meant in your family, a culture, a civilization, as open-minded as your grandfather was, as delightedly disputatious as your father was.... Don't let the zealots make Muslim a terrifying word, I urged myself; remember when it meant family.

Reading is a very different thing than performing. In fact, one of the things I think that doesn't work in books on tape is if the person doing the reading "acts" too much; it becomes irritating to you listening to it.