Some people will always ground themselves very strongly in a piece of soil, a grandmother's property, a tiny plot of land, and that's great. But in the Age of Movement, there's no question that the number of people who don't - or can't - is growing exponentially.

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.

Many people would say that A Tibetan monk, even in Lhasa, may be free while the ruler of China may not be free.

Writing of every kind is a way to wake oneself up and keep as alive as when one has just fallen in love.

Writing is, in the end, that oddest of anomalies: an intimate letter to a stranger.

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

Dalai Lama is transforming those criteria - and the whole way of conducting politics. He's conducting politics in a much deeper way than most politicians are able to. He's the only politician I know of who's a monk. The Pope, of course, is in a similar position, but the Pope isn't in the same way leading a country of many million people.