The asymmetries of power that have shaped relations between the West and the rest of the world also exist in the realm of literary criticism.

Gandhi saw how people have to re-think their own individuality before engaging in political activity. Otherwise they're just playing the game that the adversary has set out.

In America, you don't even have proper holidays. It's really one of the most prosperous slave societies in history. People work their asses off all year long and get two weeks off! It's incredible.

The people who encouraged me weren't necessarily writers or readers themselves. They were people who were just pleased to see me devote my life to reading and writing.

I found it really disturbing to see a novelist writing a diatribe about Islam and Muslim radical extremists, blurring the distinction between the two.

The idea that human beings can make history, that is something quite unique to the modern West.

We need to infuse politics with ideas like compassion and empathy, and a sense that we live in an interdependent world.

Most suffering is human-made and avoidable. It's mostly in your head.

Freedom of speech doesn't guarantee great literature.

In the modern world, nationalism remains a very important force. We delude ourselves into thinking that globalization has made all of that redundant and that everyone just wants to be like America.

I think what's important and extraordinarily practical about Buddhism, is that it offers very concrete methods for people to work with.

Meditation is for many a foreign concept, somehow distant and foreboding, seemingly impossible to participate in. But another word for meditation is simply awareness. Meditation is awareness.

Some men see things as they are and ask why. Others dream things that never were and ask why not.

The world talks to the mind. Parents speak more intimately

The path of spiritual growth is a path of lifelong learning.

He likes to humble our foes by making them seem ridiculous. As he said to me the other day, ‘Kill a man, and you cede him honor in the eyes of the gods. Laugh at him and you shame him'.

Time can tick when there is no clock.

Art is both a vengeance against reality and a reconciliation with it.

I foresee that the Andersen and Fairy Tale fashion will not last; none of these things away from general nature do.

Every moment you spend on this planet, remember that you are here for a unique purpose & cause, far greater than to just eat, sleep & talk.

Wrinkles and bones, white hair and diamonds: I can't wait.