Creation is a sustained period of bliss, even though the subject can still be very sad. Because there's the triumph of coming through and understanding that you have, and that you did it the way only you could do it. You didn't do it the way somebody told you to do it.

I think the War on Terror is really absurd, especially coming from a country that is founded on terrorism.

At one point I learned transcendental meditation. This was 30-something years ago. It took me back to the way that I naturally was as a child growing up way in the country, rarely seeing people. I was in that state of oneness with creation and it was as if I didn't exist except as a part of everything.

Thank you' is the best prayer that anyone could say. I say that one a lot. Thank you expresses extreme gratitude, humility, understanding.

What I miss today more than anything else - I don't go to church as much anymore - but that old-time religion, that old singing, that old praying which I love so much. That is the great strength of my being, of my writing.

Even those of us who have tasted the radical saving grace of God find it intuitively difficult not to put conditions on grace.

You see, God helps only people who work hard. That principle is very clear.

I want to go to Heaven, and I don't want to come back. I don't wanna come back and be a baby, and be a teenager again. Oh my God, no! No, I don't want to be a teenager again. It's too awkward.