"What that book does for me is give me the tools in the same way that I had the tools when I learned the regular scales or the alphabet. If you give me the tools, the syntax, and the grammar, it still doesn't tell me how to write Ulysses."

"That is, the only reason salvation is necessary is to get us back to the garden. The Pentateuch not only presents where we began but also why we are not there any more, and why and how we need to get back."

"I believe without exception that theory follows practice. Whenever there is a conflict between theory and practice, theory is wrong. As far as I'm concerned, we make theories for what people have done."

"I think we always move from imitation to assimilation to innovation, but I can't name you 20 people outside those we've already recognized who ever got to point three: innovation."

"To be converted you have to destroy your past, destroy your history. You have to stamp on it, you have to say 'my ancestral culture does not exist, it doesn't matter.'"

"And I think that if I were a for real celebrity that was recognizable everywhere, I'd just crawl under a rock and you know, have someone run over the rock with a car, or something."

"I just think Rosa Parks was overrated. Last time I checked, she got famous for breaking the law."

"A quiet mind is capable of understanding that wisdom is knowing when to speak and when to listen."