Classic art was the art of necessity: modern romantic art bears the stamp of caprice and chance.

Well there's just some universal truths in a way that I've just observed to be true. You read Voltaire. You read modern literature. Anywhere you go there's these observations about romantic love and what it does people and these rotten feelings that rarely are people meaning to do that to each other.

The notion that the public accepts or rejects anything in modern art is merely romantic fiction. The game is completed and the trophies distributed long before the public knows what has happened.

My friendships and relationships in the conservative world are not predicated on political correctness and enforced conformity of thought. They are based instead on mutual respect honesty and understanding - concepts many modern liberals should consider revisiting.

It has been wisely observed by the greatest of modern thinkers that mankind has progressed more rapidly in every other respect than in morality.

Modern societies march towards morality in proportion as they leave religion behind.

I'm a modern Muslim. I pray and if I have a question I ask someone who is more educated in the religion than me.

Basically fundamentalism is a modern phenomenon. In the same way that Hitler evoked a mythological religion of German purity and the glory of the past the Islamists use religion to evoke emotions and passions in people who have been oppressed for a long time in order to reach their purpose.

The basic assumption of the secular society is that modernity overcomes religion.

To play June I had an immediate connect with her background and culture. We grew up with the same religion and shared a lot of the same values of family and spirituality. But I was really so inspired by what a modern woman she was.

You can't write about the past and ignore religion. It was such a fundamental mind-shaping driving force for pre-modern societies. I'm very interested in what religion does to us - its capacity to create love and empathy or hatred and violence.

Most modern science fiction went to school on 'Dune.' Even 'Harry Potter' with its 'boy protagonist who has not yet grown into his destiny' shares a common theme. When I read it for the first time I felt like I had learned another language mastered a new culture adopted a new religion.

My mother was a modern woman with a limited interest in religion. When the sun set and the fast of the Day of Atonement ended she shot from the synagogue like a rocket to dance the Charleston.

Religion always remains higher than everyday life. In order to make the elevation towards religion easier for people religion must be able to alter its forms in relation to the consciousness of modern man.

Well right now I'm very fascinated with 1920s Berlin. I mean probably the more interesting thing would be to go to the beginning of civilization or precivilization - like polytheistic times. It would be interesting to see what came before modern religion and culture - what circumstances created the environment or the need for it.

All theory of modernity in sociology suggests that the more modernity there is the less religion. In my theory we can realize that this is wrong: atheism is only one belief system among many.

You might sooner get lightning out of incense smoke than true action or passion out of your modern English religion.

Having had that experience... I think what modern culture wants to see is the relationship with the woman. I don't think you can tell a story on film nowadays where the woman simply is there for the man when he decides to settle down.

My parents are artists in their world in the world of modern artists you are supposed to just go into your studio and tune everything out and your entire relationship with your work is supposed to be a super private one. That was the way to do it and you weren't deeply truly artistic if that wasn't the way you were engaging the press.

All modern revolutions have ended in a reinforcement of the power of the State.

In the long term the United States could greatly benefit Islam by uniquely freeing the religion from government constraints and permitting it to evolve in a positive modern direction. But that's the long term.

Moreover behind this vague tendency to treat religion as a side issue in modern life there exists a strong body of opinion that is actively hostile to Christianity and that regards the destruction of positive religion as absolutely necessary to the advance of modern culture.

The argument of the broken window pane is the most valuable argument in modern politics.

But I think it's quite clear in my work that my orientation isn't political or doesn't come out of modern politics.