An old-growth forest, a mountain range or a river valley is more important and certainly more loveable than any country will ever be.

That's what careless words do. They make people love you a little less.

Another world is not only possible, she is on her way. On a quiet day, I can hear her breathing.

There's really no such thing as the 'voiceless'. There are only the deliberately silenced, or the preferably unheard.

Wars are never fought for altruistic reasons. They're usually fought for hegemony, for business. And then of course there's the business of war.

He folded his fear into a perfect rose. He held it out in the palm of his hand. She took it from him and put it in her hair.

Ammu said that human beings were creatures of habit, and it was amazing the kind of things one could get used to.

...a political struggle that does not have women at the heart of it, above it, below it, and within it is no struggle at all.

She viewed ethnic cleansing, famine and genocide as direct threats to her furniture.

Empathy may be the single most important quality that must be nurtured to give peace a fighting chance.

NGOs are dangerous. They do what the missionaries used to do in Colonial times. They are Trojan Horses. The worse the situation, the more the NGOs.

The big shift in approach on education that we are taking - which is different from what happened before - is that we trust teachers and we trust heads.

Curious things, habits. People themselves never knew they had them. [Witness for the Prosecution, also published in The Hound of Death and Other Stories.]

Do not ever threaten an Afghan with violence. We will rise as one and we will face every threat the way we have taken on thousands of previous armies and conquerors.

Poetry is the art of overhearing ourselves say things from which it is impossible to retreat.

If we take good care of one another, God will take care of us.

Influencers are dreamers. They are leaders with a vision.

It is part of my thesis that all our knowledge grows only through the correcting of our mistakes.

I am worth loving. I do not have to earn love. I am lovable because I exist. Others reflect the love I have for myself.

I detest racialism, because I regard it as a barbaric thing, whether it comes from a black man or a white man.

Thought is a garment and the soul's a bride That cannot in that trash and tinsel hide: Hatred of God may bring the soul to God.