I wanted to bring the book out right now because I think anyone who cares about Tibet knew there would be disturbances in the run up to the Olympics [2008]. Many Tibetans feel it's their last chance to broadcast their suffering and frustration and pain to the world before the Olympics take place and China is accepted as a modern nation and the world forgets about Tibet.
Pico IyerThe Dalai Lama acknowledges that he's met Westerners who to some extent are clearly Easterners at heart, and he would never want them not to become Buddhists just because they happened to be born in California.
Pico IyerMany people would say that A Tibetan monk, even in Lhasa, may be free while the ruler of China may not be free.
Pico IyerTraveling is a way to reverse time, to a small extent, and make a day last a year - or at least forty-five hours - and traveling is an easy way of surrounding ourselves, as in childhood, with what we cannot understand.
Pico IyerWhen 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.
Pico Iyer