Even if you have a terminal disease, you don't have to sit down and mope. Enjoy life and challenge the illness that you have.

It is important to not be hostile to what a greater part of society has embraced, whether as Christians, Hindus or Muslims. It is important to respect that because whether you believe or not in the existence of a superior being, humanity does believe in that.

I am fundamentally an optimist. Whether that comes from nature or nurture, I cannot say. Part of being optimistic is keeping one's head pointed toward the sun, one's feet moving forward. There were many dark moments when my faith in humanity was sorely tested, but I would not and could not give myself up to despair. That way lays defeat and death.

Forget the past.

In some ways, it is easier to be a dissident, for then one is without responsibility.

I am influenced more than ever before by the conviction that social equality is the only basis of human happiness.

The impression that you are a demigod worried me. I wanted to be like an ordinary human being with virtues and vices.