There's nothing more romantic after not seeing your husband for four months than to have our first night back together, on a Broadway stage, with 12 million people watching.

I'm now more about romantic beauty. The dominatrix thing is over. You never look as good in person as you do in 'Maxim,' but it's fun. It's all like a fantasy.

Truthfully, I almost avoided 'While You Were Sleeping,' because I find those romantic comedies kind of precious, and they're full of lines that leave you feeling a little bewildered when you say them.

When I was growing up, my favorite movie was 'Somewhere in Time' with Christopher Reeve, which is a hugely romantic, sappy movie. I couldn't understand it when the guy didn't get the girl or the girl didn't get the guy in love stories. I was definitely a sap.

There's a hardening of the culture. Reality TV has lowered the standards of entertainment. You're left wondering about the legitimacy of relationships. It's probably harder to entertain the same people with a more classic form of writing, and romantic comedies are a classic genre.

The only shibboleth the West has is science. It is the premise of modernity and it defines itself as a rationality capable of, indeed requiring separation from politics, religion and really, society. Modernisation is to work towards this.

The state has physical power and uses it when necessary; the power of religion is love and beneficence.

Revealed religion is one thing, revealed legislation, another.

I sometimes wish I had been educated a Catholic, in order to unite the poetry of religion with its higher principles. Are they necessarily inseparable? Is man really so much of a philosopher, that he can conceive of truth in its abstract purity, and divest life and the affections of all the aids of the imagination?

I was a very religious child - I went to synagogue at least once, sometimes twice, a day. And I remember my religiousness as good - I think religion is good for children, especially educated children, because it allows for imagination, a whole imaginative world apart from the practical world.

I am extremely respectful of the Jewish community. You know, I am Christian. I think of Jews as my older brothers. I mean, there wouldn't be Christianity without the Jewish religion. There is a direct connection between the two of them.

Baseball is more than a game to me, it's a religion.

I think what I and most other sociologists of religion wrote in the 1960s about secularization was a mistake. Our underlying argument was that secularization and modernity go hand in hand. With more modernization comes more secularization.

Judaism is an intellectually based religion, and the single most important theme is that of study.

We peruse one ideal, that of bringing people together in peace, irrespective of race, religion and political convictions, for the benefit of mankind.

The knife of historical relativism... which has cut to pieces all metaphysics and religion must also bring about healing.

As a scientist, I don't believe science will ever discover whether God exists. Nor do I believe religion will ever prove it.

French laicite is probably aggressive and antagonistic to the religion, but there are other models of secularism in the world where there could be reconciliation between religion and secularism.

Let the professors of Christianity recommend their religion by deeds of benevolence - by Christian meekness - by lives of temperance and holiness.

The passion for art is, as for believers, very religious. It unites people, its message is of common humanity. Art has become my religion - others pray in church. It's a banality, but you don't possess art, it possesses you. It's like falling in love.

The viral power of online media has proven how fast creative ideas can be spread and adopted, using tools like cellphones, digital cameras, micro-credit, mobile banking, Facebook, and Twitter. A perfect example? The way the Green Movement in Iran caught fire thanks to social media.

Feminism isn't simply about being a woman in a position of power. It's battling systemic inequities; it's a social justice movement that believes sexism, racism and classism exist and interconnect, and that they should be consistently challenged.

Social media is not about the exploitation of technology but service to community.

Social media is the ultimate equalizer. It gives a voice and a platform to anyone willing to engage.

Peer pressure and social norms are powerful influences on behaviour, and they are classic excuses.

It takes discipline not to let social media steal your time.

Technology and social media have brought power back to the people.

Women have talent and intelligence but, due to social constraints and prejudices, it is still a long distance away from the goal of gender equality.

Human beings are born solitary, but everywhere they are in chains - daisy chains - of interactivity. Social actions are makeshift forms, often courageous, sometimes ridiculous, always strange. And in a way, every social action is a negotiation, a compromise between 'his,' 'her' or 'their' wish and yours.

From the streets of Cairo and the Arab Spring, to Occupy Wall Street, from the busy political calendar to the aftermath of the tsunami in Japan, social media was not only sharing the news but driving it.