The children have been a wonderful gift to me, and I'm thankful to have once again seen our world through their eyes. They restore my faith in the family's future.
An unexamined faith is not worth having, for fundamentalism and uncritical certitude entail the rejection of one of the great human gifts: that of free will, of the liberty to make up our own minds based on evidence and tradition and reason.
In my rational mind, I know... that is a very simplistic way of looking at it, but when there is violence of that kind, it challenges my faith. I still can't say that I totally understand why - why that is allowed to happen.
But how odd that in this heathen nation of empty pews, where churches' bare, ruined choirs are converted into luxury loft living, a Labour government - yes, a Labour government - is deliberately creating a huge expansion of faith schools.
You can almost see voters nodding their heads at home: The public's faith in politicians and political institutions has been on a steep and dangerous decline for decades, because elected leaders fail to deliver.
A lot of people have a lot of faith in Karole Armitage. They see her as bold, inventive, indefatigable. 'America isn't working out? There's always Europe. Ballet? No? Go modern. Keep going! Show 'em!'
I've taken the leap of faith to stop punching the company time clock and start working for myself. I'm now the CEO of Starfish Media Group, my production company, in New York City.
At issue was the question whether this man's faith could prevail against a man whose equal faith it was that this society is sick beyond saving, and that mercy itself pleads for its swift extinction and replacement by another.
Someday in the distant cyborg future, when our internal and external memories fully merge, we may come to possess infinite knowledge. But that's not the same thing as wisdom.
Greet every morning with open arms and say thanks every night with a full heart. Each day is a precious gift to be savored and used, not left unopened and hoarded for a future that may never come.
There's always a host of voices you're inspired by. I love Don DeLillo, and I love Isaac Bashevis Singer, and I love Beckett, and I love Pinter. He's one of the funniest voices in English literature since Dickens.
As a young man, Dickens worked as a reporter in the House of Commons and hated it. He felt that all politicians spoke with the same voice.
I was brought up on Dickens. I remember reading 'Bleak House' but, coming back to it, I didn't remember much about it apart from a few characters.
A modern-day Dickens with a popular voice and a genius for storytelling in any genre, Stephen King has written many wonderful books.
Childhood is not dead. Children were worse off when we were hunter-gatherers; they were threatened in medieval times and exploited during the Industrial Revolution. Was it any better in the time of Charles Kingsley or Charles Dickens?
I am proudest of that first novel, 'Trust,' of anything I have written. I don't think I've had such intense energy since.
I think it's more optimistic about human nature to acknowledge that people are the products of their time but then to see that they have moments of grace and dignity that everybody has.
Probably careful plotting reflects my personality. I am meticulous by nature. I can't imagine speed-writing anything that happens to pop into my head.
Cultural values are, in themselves, neutral as well as universal, and so much depends on how individuals or ethnic groups use them. Values are influenced by so many factors such as geography, climate, religion, the economy and technology.
Mythology and science both extend the scope of human beings. Like science and technology, mythology, as we shall see, is not about opting out of this world, but about enabling us to live more intensely within it.
The indigenous peoples never had, and still do not have, the place that they should have occupied in the progress and benefits of science and technology, although they represented an important basis for this development.
