"Piracy is robbery with violence, often segueing into murder, rape and kidnapping. It is one of the most frightening crimes in the world. Using the same term to describe a twelve-year-old swapping music with friends, even thousands of songs, is evidence of a loss of perspective so astounding that it invites and deserves the derision it receives."

"Inside her, great castles of comprehension, models of the world as she had understood it, shivered. She could not decide whether to let them crumble or to try desperately to save them."

"Silence is not a reply. However, it shows a way of avoiding further discussion and critical questions and the escape from the reality or idiocy, since it is a personal diplomacy."

"We have two alternatives: either we question our beliefs - or we don't. Either we accept our fixed versions of reality- or we begin to challenge them. In Buddha's opinion, to train in staying open and curious - to train in dissolving our assumptions and beliefs - is the best use of our human lives."

"Suppose I try saying something. What way do I have of knowing that if I say I know something I don't really not know it? Or what way do I have of knowing that if I say I don't know something I don't really in fact know it?"

"Even in Europe a change has sensibly taken place in the mind of man. Science has liberated the ideas of those who read and reflect, and the American example has kindled feelings of right in the people."

"We join spokes together in a wheel, but it is the center hole that makes the wagon move.We shape clay into a pot, but it is the emptiness insidethat holds whatever we want.We hammer wood for a house, but it is the inner spacethat makes it livable.We work with being, but non-being is what we use."

"It’s ignorant to think you know everything about a person. There’s many different sides to everybodys personality and there’s just different colours to a personality."