There is something about guns that inhibits understanding. It is not just that they can put an end to argument. They somehow generate beliefs that are obviously contrary to observable fact.

Thomas Paine, so celebrated and so despised as he traveled through the critical events of his time, has long appealed to biographers. Paine was present at the creation both of the United States and of the French Republic. His eloquence, in the pamphlet 'Common Sense,' propelled the American colonists toward independence.

Both European and American historians have done away with any conceptual limits on what in the past needs and deserves investigating. The result, among other things, has been a flood of works on gender history, black history, and ethnic history of all kinds.

No one escapes from the past without bearing some of its burdens.

Since Stonehenge, architects have always been at the cutting edge of technology. And you can't separate technology from the humanistic and spiritual content of a building.

Every actor starting out wants to be famous. One of my dreams was always to go to Paris, walk up the Champs Elysees, and be recognized, and by God, it happened!

I believe that there is a God, and coming from an African tradition, I believe also that there are gods.

When we say yes to the grace of God, we are learning how to die.