The way you write a screenplay is that you close your eyes and run the movie in your head and then you write it down.

From the beginning men used God to justify the unjustifiable.

It's true that the human body is more vulnerable than the products of the human mind. We need to protect artists and journalists people to allow them to work.

All art began as sacred art, you know? I mean, all painting began as religious painting. All writing began as religious writing.

When...did it become irrational to dislike religion, any religion, even to dislike it vehemently? When did reason get redescribed as unreason? When were the fairy stories of the superstitious placed above criticism, beyond satire? A religion was not a race. It was an idea, and ideas stood (or fell) because they were strong enough (or too weak) to withstand criticism, not because they were shielded from it. Strong ideas welcomed dissent.

Is birth always a fall?

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.