When one questions [Dalai Lama's] political actions, it is worth remembering that he's the single most experienced politician on the planet at this moment.

There's so much visible stuff around now, we're tempted to forget that it's usually the invisible that matters most.

Travel, in the superficial sense at least, is a good cure for loneliness. When you travel, especially in the third world, you quickly find that you get more friends than you know what to do with.

I love the fact that we can't explain coincidences. I think it's like sometimes you walk into a crowded room and you'll see a stranger and you feel as if you know her better than the friends that you came with. And the very fact that you can't explain it is what gives it its power, that it lies in some deeper or mysterious realm, I think.

Home is not just the place where you happen to be born. Its the place where you become yourself.

I take very seriously the sense of our living these days in a global neighborhood. And the first sensible thing to do in such circumstances, as well as one of the most rewarding things, is to go and meet the neighbors, find out who they are, and what they think and feel. So travel for me is an act of discovery and of responsibility as well a grand adventure and a constant liberation.

Home is essentially a set of values you carry around with you and, like a turtle or a snail or whatever, home has to be something that is part of you and can be equally a part of you wherever you are. I think that not having a home is a good inducement to creating a metaphysical home and to being able to see it in more invisible ways.