To bear many children is considered not only a religious blessing but also an investment. The greater their number, some Indians reason, the more alms they can beg.

It is our duty to create a social milieu in which the young and the socially weak feel that the present and future belong to them.

Whenever you take a step forward, you are bound to disturb something.

The longer one doesn't write, the more difficult it is to communicate.

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.

Naturally, if the Americans had fired a shot, if the Seventh Fleet had done something more than sit there in the Bay of Bengal...yes, the Third World War would have exploded. But, in all honesty, not even that fear occurred to me.

The life I've had, the difficulties, the hardships, the pain I've suffered since I was a child. It's a great privilege to have led a difficult life, and many people in my generation have had this privilege - I sometimes wonder if young people today aren't deprived of the dramas that shaped us.