There are always pressures on decision-makers other than just what is right or what is wrong.

People think there's a single solution to complex problems, and the solution is often making an enemy of a group of people - pulling back and rejecting the other.

I keep coming back to the phrase "Dance with the system" - not just march onwards no matter what happens.

Floundering around, learning by doing but also by failing, is not only good but inevitable.

If you were disabled in Russia, you had to re-register every year, and it took up to six months to re-register, so people who lost limbs in Afghanistan had to prove that their leg hadn't grown back.

Somewhere like Russia or China, decision-makers have far fewer constraints on acting than in more open systems.

Lots of people in the open system are very determined to try and strengthen evidence-based policy.

To be effective at selling ideas, at being a lobbyist, influencing other people, you have to be very sure of yourself.

I see [activists] getting really angry that people won't just do what the evidence tells them, and that's not very helpful. You need to actually think why that is.

There's no point in just hankering for the big trade unions of the 1950s or '60s.

I sound like a church nut, but look at the role of the churches in the civil rights movement in the States. People are brought together in other ways that can become drivers of change.

You have to be pragmatic, purposeful and goal-oriented to be fully effective

One who speaks ‘completely’ negative creates karmic obstructions (antray) and ‘positive’ does not create any obstruction (antray).

I look coolly in to the blue eyes of the person who is now my greatest opponent, the person who would keep me alive at his own expense. And I promise myself I will defeat his plan.

Most of the myths that we carry about spirituality are because we have been dominated by this hyper-masculine trance.

I was acting my way through the whole thing.

I still get really excited looking at stuff that I've seen every day for 20 years.

Be interested rather than interesting

I like talking to a brick wall- it's the only thing in the world that never contradicts me!

When my car runs out of gas, I buy a new one. I don't want to ride around with a quitter.

Imperialism: The final stage of Capitalism.