New York Times Magazine

The very essence of literature is the war between emotion and intellect, between life and death. When literature becomes too intellectual -- when it begins to ignore the passions, the motions -- it becomes sterile, silly, and actually without substance.

Doubt is part of all religion. All the religious thinkers were doubters.

We know what a person thinks not when he tells us what he thinks, but by his actions.

What nature delivers to us is never stale. Because what nature creates has eternity in it.