When someone sets out to be controversial or provocative or shocking as an end in itself, I don't think that's a noble goal.

Over the years, I've realized that I have as much in common with the performance artist, the standup comedian, the screenwriter, as I do with the theologian. I'm in an odd world where I make things and share them with people.

If there's any place where you would express your deepest doubts, it would be church.

For a lot of people in our world today, God has become about believing the right stuff so you don't get in trouble.

What skills I lacked in, say, math or science, I like to think I made up for in my ability to read people and situations with great clarity. I therefore considered myself as a sort of valued soothsayer when it came to dispensing opinions to my friends about their life choices or relationships.

I would have told him that I appreciated his friendship through the years and that I had learned a lot from him. I really loved Frank like you do a brother.

You can say that I lived in Asia for a long time and in Japan I became close to several CIA agents. And you could say that I became an adviser to several CIA agents in the field and, through my friends in the CIA, met many powerful people and did special works and special favors.

This idea of walls, segregation, labels, and 'You against us' and 'We are superior and you are inferior.' Which people are legitimate? Which relationships are legitimate or not? Who declares that under which authority? These are things that are hugely important.