Our society is dependent on some precarious mechanisms, and they are very dicey. They can easily collapse.

It is terrible to destroy a person's picture of himself in the interests of truth or some other abstraction.

I hate Iran. I hate the Iranian government. It's a cruel and evil government.

Whatever you're meant to do, do it now. The conditions are always impossible.

There was a time when young people respected learning and literature and now they don't.

A simple grateful thought turned heavenwards is the most perfect prayer.

In Shanghai, I saw great contrasts. On one street there would be impressive shops selling copies of the latest word in glamorous European fashion, and around the corner on a back street there were poor families crammed into one room with a naked light bulb. One evening I heard a Chinese family singing "Happy Birthday." It was weird. You would have thought that they'd have their own happy birthday song. Every dominant society in the world - whether it's French or British or American - imposes its culture on less developed societies.