"After I left the convent, for 15 years I was worn out with religion, I wanted nothing whatever to do with it. I felt disgusted with it. If I saw someone reading a religious book on a train, I'd think, how awful."

"Today mythical thinking has fallen into disrepute we often dismiss it as irrational and self-indulgent. But the imagination is also the faculty that has enabled scientists to bring new knowledge to light and to invent technology that has made us immeasurably more effective."

"Islam is a religion of success. Unlike Christianity, which has as its main image, in the west at least, a man dying in a devastating, disgraceful, helpless death."

"Every fundamentalist movement I've studied in Judaism, Christianity and Islam is convinced at some gut, visceral level that secular liberal society wants to wipe out religion."

"The silent observer understands that the melody of life is composed of both highs and lows."

"It is a timeless truth that in the quiet sanctuary of self-reflection, the soul finds its rhythm."

"Wit as an instrument of revenge is as infamous as art is as a means of sensual titillation."

"Beauty in art is the harmony of spirit, intellect, and craft. In this truth lies the bedrock of all virtue."