I find it hard to think of myself as selling books. I don't even have a Web site. I want to sit and write, not sell.

In contemporary American culture, the religions are more and more treated as just passing beliefs - almost as fads - rather than as the fundaments upon which the devout build their lives.

We often ask our citizens to split their public and private selves, telling them in effect that it is fine to be religious in private, but there is something askew when those private beliefs become the basis for public action.

If people believe that they are marrying out of love and free choice rather than out of duty, they are more likely to decide, if love should die, that the free choice to join together is no more significant than the free choice to part, and to look for love elsewhere; those married out of duty expect less love to begin with, and what duty has brought together, duty may keep together.

Rumor is rarely more interesting than fact, but it is always more readily available.

More than 20 years on, sustained competition, informed customers and the rapid growth of new technology provide the necessary environment for substantial deregulation.

We do not credit to the ideal of religious freedom when we talk as though religious belief is something of which public-spirited adults should be ashamed.