Opportunities are not offered. They must be wrested and worked for. And this calls for perseverance... and courage.

If you only knew what it did to me to have lived in that house where the police were bursting in to take everyone away! I certainly didn't have a happy and serene childhood.

In fact the communists gained strength in India when the people thought my party was moving to the right. And they were correct.

We should not mourn for men of high ideals. Rather we should rejoice that we had the privilege of having had them with us, to inspire us by their radiant personalities.

I know I'll astonish everyone by talking like this, but it's God's truth. Honors have never tempted me and I've never sought them.

My father was a saint. He was the closest thing to a saint that you can find in a normal man.

You soon realize that the peak you've climbed was one of the lowest, that the mountain was part of a chain of mountains, that there are still so many, so many mountains to climb...And the more you climb, the more you want to climb - even though you're dead tired.