And I don't believe that children are innocent. In fact no one seriously believes that. Just go to a playground and watch the kids playing in the sandbox! The romantic notion of the sweet child is simply the parents projecting their own wishes.
The state of New Jersey is really two places - terrible cities and wonderful suburbs. I live in the suburbs the final battleground of the American dream where people get married and have kids and try to scratch out a happy life for themselves. It's very romantic in that way but a bit naive. I like to play with that in my work.
The only ground on which a neutral State can claim respect at the hands of belligerents is that so far as she is concerned their rights are protected.
Religion is interesting because it brings out the best and the worst in humanity. It can be a source of good deeds whether it's people from different spiritual backgrounds coming together to help other people in need after a crisis. But it's also a cause for war and bloodshed.
The Muslims have as everyone else says the right to practice their religion and they have the right to construct a mosque at ground zero if they wish. What I am saying though is that they should listen to public opinion they should listen to the deep wounds and anguish that this is causing to so many good people.
Although religion was around me my whole life I never felt it was forced upon me. It is my centring my grounding the soul of me. I feel I'm nothing without it.
How do you live with evil? Art is traditionally - certainly with my secular background - the answer but art is very self-referential whereas religion claims to go beyond the bounds of human existence.
All the different nations in the world despite their differences of appearance and religion and language and way of life still have one thing in common and that is what's inside of all of us. If we X-rayed the insides of different human beings we wouldn't be able to tell from those X-rays what the person's language or background or race is.
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.
If religion were true its followers would not try to bludgeon their young into an artificial conformity but would merely insist on their unbending quest for truth irrespective of artificial backgrounds or practical consequences.