“I wonder why no one called the police about the rocket launcher? God knows my neighbors usually report it if I so much as fart in my backyard. (Bubba)”

“I don't think I've achieved superstardom. One has to achieve much more. My next level is the next shot I do. When I see some of my shots, I wonder why I did them so badly. Audiences and critics don't know about these shots. But I know. These moments remain very personal.”

“Two things that matter to me. Emotional resonance and rocket launchers.”

“Look at this. Did you ever see a magazine called the New Musical Express? It turns out there is a pop group called The Police - I don't know why they are called that, presumably to distinguish them from the punks - and they've made an album of my essay The Ghost in the Machine. I didn't know anything about it until my clipping agency sent me a review of the record.”

“I can now report that the mathematics of the multiple focus are a most improbable thicket, and the useful service I enforced upon what I must call an absurd set of contradictions is one of my secrets. I know that thousands of scientists, at home and abroad, are attempting to duplicate my work; they are welcome to the effort. None will succeed. Why do I speak so positively? That is my other secret.”

“Try a rocket launcher. Think maybe you could manage to hit me with that?”

“I noticed my brother sent copies of his e-mail to his nephews and nieces, as well as to our siblings. The wonder is not that he knows so much about Church history, but that such matters continue to preoccupy him. Why not let it go?”

“In God is my being, my I, my strength, my bliss, my desire. But this I that I often call so...in truth I no longer know what the I is, or the Mine, or desire, or the good, or bliss.”

“There was so much goodness in my life. So much happiness. I wondered whether I deserved any of it.”

“Yes, I'm a practising Muslim, but I don't understand why only I'm asked about my religion. Everyone's got a religion out there. I wonder why no one else is asked about it.”