I find that the hardest work in the world... is to persuade Easterners that growing up in the West is not intellectually crippling.

I think probably one of the important things that happened to me was growing up in Idaho in the mountains, in the woods, and having a very strong presence of the wilderness around me. That never felt like emptiness. It always felt like presence.

Oddly enough, my favorite genre is not fiction. I'm attracted by primary sources that are relevant to historical questions of interest to me, by famous old books on philosophy or theology that I want to see with my own eyes, by essays on contemporary science, by the literatures of antiquity.

I really enjoyed my kids. They were good boys, you know, and interesting. And they didn't wear me out.

Religious people often prefer to be right rather than compassionate. Often, they don't want to give up their egotism. They want their religion to endorse their ego, their identity.

In my view, it was no accident that Nelson Mandela was chosen by God to lead the people of South Africa. There are very few people who could be imprisoned, kept away from their family and loved ones, and exit that same prison with such a powerful spirit of love and a desire for reconciliation.

After being in a studio, working on games stuff, I'm like, 'Oh my God, I wish I could just sit in my room for a week and listen to music and draw by myself.'

When we had been married five years, we had six children. What, in God's name, was wrong with me?