I set out to really build this universe of interfaith connectedness, where people could see that other people in different parts of the world are very much like them.
The whole attitude of society has become much more open and realistic. They realize that the only way to make a more democratic and free society is to let different opinions come out.
Don't deliver an essay with so many points. No one can absorb it. Just say one thing... Of course, you can say the point in many different ways over and over again with different illustrations.
The United States is a melting pot. Like John F. Kennedy said, it's a nation of immigrants. But Donald Trump wants to build a fence that clearly makes the statement: "You and I are divided. We're different, and you're dangerous." That kind of thinking stops human, civilized evolution. It's dangerous to create that kind of tension.
For a writer you have to be interested in different cultures, different backgrounds. You are not there to write only about your village. You're there to show a bit of your village, but also to understand other villages.
We walked to meet each other up at the time of our love and then we have been irresistibly drifting in different directions, and there's no altering that.
My formula for greatness in a human being is amor fati: that one wants nothing to be different, not forward, not backward, not in all eternity. Not merely bear what is necessary, still less conceal it—all idealism is mendaciousness in the face of what is necessary—but love it