Today, nostalgia is almost as unacceptable as racism.

Historical determinism is a recipe for political quietism.

The frontier between public and private shifts from time to time and culture to culture.

It is true that too much belief can be bad for your health.

Virtue is something you have to get good at, like playing the trombone or tolerating bores at parties. Being a virtuous human being takes practice; and those who are brilliant at being human (what Christians call the saints) are the virtuosi of the moral sphere - the Pavarottis and Maradonas of virtue.

An enlightened trust in the sovereignty of human reason can be every bit as magical as the exploits of Merlin, and a faith in our capacity for limitless self-improvement just as much a wide-eyed superstition as a faith in leprechauns.

You've got to have a sense of different audiences. I'm a kind of performer manque - I come from a long line of failed actors!