I’ve been worrying about God a little bit lately. It seems like he’s been in a bad mood. And I think it has to do with the quality of lovers he’s been getting.
Literature is the one place in any society where, within the secrecy of our own heads, we can hear voices talking about everything in every possible way.
In the waking dreams our societies permit, in our myths, our arts, our songs, we celebrate the nonbelongers, the different ones, the outlaws, the freaks.
Every time you finish a book, you have a terrible feeling that there’s just never going to be another one. But fortunately, so far, the next one has always shown up.
Among the great struggles of man-good/evil, reason/unreason, etc.-there is also this mighty conflict between the fantasy of Home and the fantasy of Away, the dream of roots and the mirage of the journey.
Religion is responsible for a lot of the problems in the history of the world and it’s not something that I practice or recommend, but to each his own.
Two things form the bedrock of any open society – freedom of expression and rule of law. If you don’t have those things, you don’t have a free country.
