I believe in the story [ of Adam and Eve]. For me, it's a story.

[Tibet] is a small country based on religious principle, religious traditions. It never wanted any conquest.

I've been fighting my entire adult life for men and women everywhere to be equal and to be different. But there is one right I would not grant anyone. And that is the right to be indifferent.

Write only if you cannot live without writing. Write only what you alone can write.

I'd almost say hope isn't what it used to be. It's very difficult today to be a teacher. I speak to children. And tell them, look, no matter what, you must have hope. You must. When I invoke Camus, who said when there is no hope, you must invent hope. . .hope is something that is not what God gives us. It's like peace. It's a gift that one can give to one another. Only another person can push me to despair. And only another person can push me to hope. Its my choice.

Writers write because they cannot allow the characters that inhabit them to suffocate them. These characters want to get out, to breathe fresh air and partake of the wine of friendship; were they to remain locked in, they would forcibly break down the walls. It is they who force the writer to tell their stories.

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.