Compassion doesn't, of course, mean feeling sorry for people, or pity, which is how the word has become emasculated in a way.

Religion is not a nice thing. It is potentially a very dangerous thing because it involves a heady complex of emotions, desires, yearnings and fears.

We have to make a disciplined effort to find out what our governments are doing in these various parts of the world and what is actually happening. We have to learn to listen to each other's stories. Something we are not very good at.

Respect only has meaning as respect for those with whom I do not agree.

Each of the world religions has its own particular genius, its own special insight into the nature and requirements of compassion, and has something unique to teach us.

From the Muslims I learned from the extraordinary pluralism of the Koran, the fact that the Koran endorses every single one of the major world faiths, but I was particularly enthralled by the Sufi tradition, the mystical tradition of Islam, which is so open to other religious faiths.

Buddhists talk about nirvana in very much the same terms as monotheists describe God.