The Australians, it seems to me, thrive on their remoteness from the world and see it as a way of keeping up a code of "No worries, mate," while peddling their oddities to visitors: nonconformity is at once a fact of life for many, and a selling point.

America has a hold on imaginations that no other country does. I think that is partly because it is an immigrant country and there is still a kind of innocence in America that translates very well everywhere in the world.

In an age of distraction, nothing can feel more luxurious than paying attention.

The Dalai Lama says that when a Catholic and a Buddhist speak, the Buddhist becomes a deeper Buddhist and the Catholic becomes a deeper Catholic.

When I was two years old, I heard about his [Dalai Lama] flight from Tibet. Being very little, I said, "Oh, good Tibetans, bad Chinese." Those were the black-and-white ways that I thought.

I suddenly realized I was racing around so much, I could never catch up with my life

Literally, when you wake up at 9 o'clock in the morning in Havana you don't know where you'll be at noon. But it's a safe guess that you'll either be married, arrested, or in the midst of some incredible transaction where somebody is stealing your passport or paying you in Dominican pesos for it, or whatever. It's a wild place.