I swore never to be silent whenever and wherever human beings endure suffering and humiliation. We must always take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented.

To remain silent and indifferent is the greatest sin of all.

Man, by definition, is born a stranger: coming from nowhere, he is thrust into an alien world which existed before him-a world which didn't need him. And which will survive him.

After my father's death, nothing could touch me any more.

Still I believe that Hanna Arendt, she was wrong when she tried to say that we are all actually capable of this, it's not true. I think it's not true. There are certain things human beings are not capable of. I mean people, even normal human beings. You have to do certain things in order to become what the enemy was and I didn't accept her philosophical outlook on that.

One thing is that [Tibetans] should not give up hope. That's - even [if] it lasts a century. My discussions with the Dalai Lama always were about that.

I was working as a journalist for an Israeli paper in Paris, and my salary at the highest was fifty dollars a month. At the end of the month I always had palpitations; I didn't know how to pay my rent. Even after the war, I was often hungry. But that's part of the romantic condition of a student. To be a student in Paris and not be hungry is wrong.