This trivializing rhetoric runs the subtle but unmistakable message: pray if you like, worship if you must, but whatever you do, do not on any account take your religion seriously.

Richard John Neuhaus, in his well-known book The Naked Public Square, tells us that in America, the public square has become openly hostile to religion.

There is much depressing evidence that the religious voice is required to stay out of the public square only when it is pressed in a conservative cause.

Lots of white people think black people are stupid. They are stupid themselves for thinking so, but regulation will not make them smarter.

We live today in a world in which nobody believes choices should have consequences. But may I tell you the great secret that our culture seeks to deny? You cannot escape the consequences of your choices. Time runs in only one direction.

In real life there are indeed black people who have been in the middle class for generations, but in entertainment it's as if they don't exist.

I think of my novels as entertainments.