It's not right to say that my father influenced me more than others, and I wouldn't be able to say whether my personality was formed more by my father or my mother or the Mahatma [Gandhi] or the friends who were with us.

What good does it do to remain tied to an ideology if you don't achieve anything by it? I have an ideology myself - you can't work in a vacuum; you have to have faith in something.

Nothing can convince me that people are at one with their work unless they're joyous about it.

I'm trained to difficulties; difficulties can't be eliminated from life.

You said, 'Planning is something for communist countries; democracy and planning don't go together!' But, with all the errors we committed, our plans succeeded.

I remember harrowing episodes. People who emigrated, people who didn't want to emigrate...Many Muslims didn't want to leave India to go to live in Pakistan, but the propaganda was that there they'd have greater opportunities and so they left. Many Hindus, on the other hand, didn't want to stay in Pakistan, but they had ties there or property and so they stayed.

The civil servant is primarily the master of the short-term solution.