You can't spend your whole life criticizing something and then, when you have the chance to do it better, refuse to go near it.

The tragedy of modern man is not that he knows less and less about the meaning of his own life, but that it bothers him less and less.

Hope is the deep orientation of the human soul that can be held at the darkest times.

It is not enough to stare up the steps, we must step up the stairs.

All human suffering concerns each human being.

I feel that the dormant goodwill in people needs to be stirred. People need to hear that it makes sense to behave decently or to help others, to place common interests above their own, to respect the elementary rules of human coexistence.

The only thing I can recommend at this stage is a sense of humor, an ability to see things in their ridiculous and absurd dimensions, to laugh at others and at ourselves, a sense of irony regarding everything that calls out for parody in this world. In other words, I can only recommend perspective and distance.