ON SECULAR UTOPIA
I’ve been to the pinnacle of what secular Utopia has to offer. It’s this kind of … everything. I got money, fame, this, that, and the other, and it’s all been [just handed to me]. And when I was younger, I got my proboscis out and dipped it into the fount and sucked it up. It didn’t matter. It wasn’t enough. It wasn’t good enough. It’s not good enough. It leaves you empty. The more you eat, the emptier you get.

I think everybody gets to a point in their life where that happens, where they get to the moment of truth and they [ask], “What is this all about? Am I going to jump? Am I going to go on? I don’t want to do either. I don’t want to live. I don’t want to die.” You ask yourself all those Hamlet questions and eventually you just have to say, “I’m not good enough to figure this out. I don’t know. I just don’t know. Help! If there is anything out there, help!” And if you’re lucky, you’ll recognize the signs of that help.

—Mel Gibson, in a TV interview with Diane Sawyer for Primetime Special Edition, February 16, 2004