Novels Are Make-believe And Play

My Aunt Used To Say, "it's Between Me And My God; It's Got Nothing To Do With You." It Was A Good Enough Answer For Me As A Snot-nosed College Kid Angling For A Religious Debate, And I Still Think It's A Good Way Of Putting It.

Literature Helps Us Transcend Ourselves.

If Your Book Is Set In The Plantation Days Of The Slave-owning South And You Write A Little Romance Between Two Slave Owners Without Acknowledging The System They Live, That's A Political Gesture.

Lived Religion Is A Very Different Thing From Strict Textual Analysis. Very Few People Of Any Faith Live Their Lives As Literalist Interpretations Of Scripture.

Maybe We Are All Prospective Migrants. The Lines Of National Borders On Maps Are Artificial Constructs, As Unnatural To Us As They Are To Birds Flying Overhead. Our First Impulse Is To Ignore Them.