I am not a prophet; I cannot predict what will happen.

Never paint epic canvases during the revolution, because the revolutionaries will tear them apart.

It is easy now to break the vows. It is even easier to part your ways if vows haven't been taken.

Happiness needs one-upmanship.

I was watching the TV broadcasts interviewing people stranded at airports for days on end, losing their holidays, their important business meetings and the long-awaited ability to see their families... In short, suffering. No one complained, though! They kept repeating: we are so grateful for the care taken of our safety, for feeling. They were ready to surrender a good deal of their human dignity, individuality, freedom of choice.

In our world of rampant individualisation, relationships are mixed blessings. They vacillate between a sweet dream and a nightmare, and there is no telling when one turns into the other.

We have found ourselves in the period of "interregnum": the old works no more, the new is not yet born. But the awareness that without it being born we are all marked for demise, is already much alive, as is the awareness that the hard nut we must urgently crack is not the presence of "too many poor", but "too many rich".