Jonathan Raban

When I want an opinion, I'll get it from my peers - from men of vision, like our great railroad builders... Stanford, Huntington, Dinsmore... fellows with imaginations broad enough to span the continent.

I grew up in a secular environment, you know, in the '60s and '70s. My mother's family was Catholic, but you know, just very kind of conventionally Catholic. You know, nothing - there was nothing, you know, extreme about their version of religion. And my father was a free spirit, you know? He had no time for religion at all.