I do not look upon my life as a sacrifice at all.

If you want to bring an end to long-standing conflict, you have to be prepared to compromise. If either or both sides insist on getting everything that they want - that is to say 100 percent of their demands to be met, then there can never be a settlement.

I was a bit of a coward when I was small. I was terribly frightened of the dark.

Some believe that the only way to remove the authoritarian regime and replace it with a democratic one is through violent means. I would like to set the precedent of political change through political settlement, not through violence.

I don't believe in professional dissidents. I think it's just a phase, like adolescence.

The provision of basic material needs is not sufficient to make minority groups and indigenous peoples feel they are truly part of the greater national entity. For that they have to be confident that they too have an active role to play in shaping the destiny of the state that demands their allegiance.

Some of the most relaxing weekends I have ever enjoyed were those I spent quietly with a sense of all work to date completed, and an absorbing mystery.