I think that the core doctrines of Christianity - the incarnation, the resurrection, life after death-these are as strong as ever. In fact, the belief in life after death has increased in this century.

An adolescent is somebody who is in between things. A teenager is somebody who's kind of permanently there. And so living with them through the various teenage hopes and sorrows and joys was curiously enough a maturing experience for me.

Would it not be much better to have a president who deliberately lied to the people because he thought a war was essential than to have one who was so dumb as to be taken in by intelligence agencies, especially those who told him what he wanted to hear?

The leadership lost its nerve. Instead of taking the lead in the reform movement... they pulled the plug on it. They tried and are still trying to return the church to the dry ice of the previous century and a half.

I have terrible handwriting. I now say it's a learning disability... but a nun who was a very troubled woman hit me over the fingers with a ruler because my writing was so bad.

Is the patience of the American people that long suffering? Is there no outrage left in the country?

I think the real problem for American religion are those minority of fundamentalists who try to identify political policies with religion.

Practically speaking, your religion is the story you tell about your life.

Well, religion has been passed down through the years by stories people tell around the campfire. Stories about God, stories about love. Stories about good spirits and evil spirits.

It was generally believed that Catholics were not interested in arts and science graduate schools. They weren't going to be intellectuals. And so I put the theses to the test. And they all collapsed.