Sometimes I think I prefer the storyteller in [Roman Vishniac] to the photographer. But aren't they one and the same?

I have learned two lessons in my life: first, there are no sufficient literary, psychological, or historical answers to human tragedy, only moral ones. Second, just as despair can come to one another only from other human beings, hope, too, can be given to one only by other human beings.

The Tibetan religion has a past. And furthermore it has such an appeal. There again young people today are drawn to Buddhism and to Tibet. It's not only because of the Dalai Lama. It's because of what Tibet represents. There is a vast reservoir of knowledge, of mystical knowledge, which can be found in Tibet.The Chinese shouldn't be afraid of that really. They have other means of survival.

The books I have read were composed by generations of fathers and sons, mothers and daughters, teachers and disciples. I am the sum total of their experiences, and so are you.

Eternity is the place where questions and answers become one.

I remember when I heard the words "Biblical criticism" in my town, it was with disdain: "Biblical criticism? How dare you?".

Whether every story that's there [in the Bible] is a historic truth ... Again, I'm not concerned.