In India's distant past, when the population was low, the blessing given a woman was, 'May you have many children.' Most of our epics and literature stress this wish, and the idea that a woman should have many children hasn't declined.

People with clenched fists can not shake hands.

If I die a violent death, as some fear and a few are plotting, I know that the violence will be in the thought and the action of the assassins, not in my dying.

How can anybody who is the head of a nation afford not to be a prag-matist?

I think I'm cold, indeed icy, hard. Then there's another reason, one that goes with my frankness: I don't put on act.

When one has had a life as difficult as mine, one doesn't worry about how others will react.

I'm not interested in one label or the other - I'm only interested in solving certain problems, in getting where I want to go.