“I’m not a fan of ‘write what you know.’ If you don’t know, find out. I knew nothing about the Bible before I started writing ‘The Year of Living Biblically.’ That was kind of the point – to learn.”

Scrabble – The game is available in Braille. That’s a nice fact. This makes me feel better about humanity for some reason. I can’t really explain why.

I thought religion would eventually wither away and we’d all be worshiping at the altar of science.

Very few people changed the world by sitting on their couch.

It comes back to the old question: How can the Bible be so wise in some places and so barbaric in others? And why should we put any faith in a book that includes such brutality?

I know that knowledge and intelligence are not the same thing – but they do live in the same neighborhood. I know once again, firsthand, the joy of learning.

Giulia Melucci has written a wonderfully funny and moving book. It’s like Eat, Pray, Love, with recipes.

I have little shame, no dignity – all in the name of a better cause.

I don’t believe that prayers actually change God’s mind – if there is a God – but I liked praying for people in need. It was like moral weightlifting. I tend to be self-obsessed, and it was nice to get out of my brain once in a while.

Behavior shapes emotions.

Med students panic their first year when they learn all the diseases. It’s not until the second year that they learn the cures.

Taking the Bible too literally is a mistake. It should be read as a guidebook of wisdom and insight.

I was what they call ‘skinny fat’ – a body that resembled a python after swallowing a goat.

I grew up in a very secular home with no religion at all, so I was starting from zero.

I prefer the earlier birth control techniques, which ranged from the delicious (using honey as a spermicide) to the aerobic (jumping backward seven times after coitus).

I am officially Jewish, but I’m Jewish in the same way the Olive Garden is an Italian restaurant.

I’ve never before been so aware of the thousands of little good things, the thousands of things that go right every day.

I don’t leave home without my Bible, without my phone, and without my computer.

The Bible in translation is being read to thousands and thousands in Africa. It is an integral part of their functioning and the way they look at the world.

Dad, it’s been an up-and-down road for all of us, but you’ve always been there supporting from afar, texting me Bible verses every single day, telling me you love me every single day. That builds me up and I thank you so much. I love you. I’m just glad you’re part of this journey with us.

The Bible affects everybody’s life who is a Christian, from the middle class in Europe to the peasant in Africa and Asia.

The Bible has affected their lives, but in translation, since they do not read the Bible in the original Greek or Hebrew.

There are more words in the IRS code than there are in the Bible. And not a one of them is as good.

So we’re talking about the Bible itself being a translation of a translation of a translation. And, in reality, it has affected people’s lives in history.

Social justice is group psychology, it’s group rights, it’s collectivisim, and it’s a negation of individual responsibility, which is what the Bible teaches. Individual responsibility. And of course, social justice leads very quickly to socialism, and ultimately to communism.