I wasn't reading it [the Bible] as literature. I was reading it as literature, and as history, and as a moral guide, and as anthropology and law and culture.

People found it unusual to leave a job where you're the boss.

Writing a column, a weekly column for the New York Times, is really tough, and I wasn't prepared for the demands that that involved.

When you're writing for the New York Times someone reading it knows the topic better than you do and knows when you've messed up.

А weekly column is really tough.

I want to have enough space to, I don't know, think thoughts. I mean, I just - I don't know that I'm capable of having an exciting, profound thought every week that's worth a column.

Slate is not a political magazine but a lot of what it does is politics.

I sound like an evangelist or something.

It's much easier to hire really great people like that in New York and in Brooklyn in particular, than it is in Washington.

I have blocks of time where I'm working intently on something.

What is Atlas Obscura? So, it was a small digital media company. It's an atlas, it's literally like, an atlas of places, wonderful, unusual places.

Never step on caterpillars, as one day they'll become butterflies, and you'll never know when you'll need a ride on their wings of fortune.

I never really thought about how when I look at the moon, it's the same moon as Shakespeare and Marie Antoinette and George Washington and Cleopatra looked at.

One word frees us of all the weight and pain of life: That word is love.

You never know when the publicity people will feel it is a good time to release the film.

I never let my politics supersede my manners.

The easiest way to not believe your own hype is to not know what people are saying about you.

...you have to cherish the world at the same time that you struggle to endure it.

The software patent problem is not limited to Mono. Software patents affect everyone writing software today.

The cause of all these evils was the lust for power arising from greed and ambition; and from these passions proceeded the violence of parties once engaged in contention.