We can begin by doing small things at the local level, like planting community gardens or looking out for our neighbors. That is how change takes place in living systems, not from above but from within, from many local actions occurring simultaneously.

The natural tendency of children is to solve problems, but we try to indoctrinate them with facts, which they are supposed to feed back, and then we fail them. And that's child abuse. And you should never raise children that way. You should cultivate and encourage their natural tendencies to create solutions to the problems around them.

I first understood the changes that were necessary in this world, because the waiters in the restaurant, when I cried, used to say, "Leave her on the hillside to die. She's only a girl baby." I think they said it somewhat as a joke, maybe not, but it made me understand that being born female in this world was very different from being born male.

Nonviolence is based on recognizing that all of us are human beings. And at a certain point we begin to learn that you don't gather very much by making enemies out of people and not recognizing their humanity.

Love isn't about what we did yesterday; it's about what we do today and tomorrow and the day after

I think most people do not imagine how things can change. In Detroit, there are community gardens that are only an indication that the country is coming back to the city. And that is something that actually is necessary to stop the real imminent danger of the extermination of our planet.

I think Detroit shows that we've come to the end of the industrial epoch and have to find a new mode of production.