I think at a certain age I became conscious of the power of words. And it was fairly late. I was kind of a goofball - but I was always subconsciously thinking about issues.
We have to deal with issues like inequality, we have deal with issues of economic dislocation, we have to deal with peoples fears that their children won't do as well as they have. The more aggressively and effectively we deal with those issues, the less those fears may channel themselves into counter-productive approaches that pit people against each other.
Religions contradict one another-on small matters, such as whether we should put on a hat or take one off on entering a house of worship, or whether we should eat beef and eschew pork or the other way around, all the way to the most central issues, such as whether there are no gods, one God, or many gods.
Their [the evangelicals'] success also points to a hunger for the product they are selling, a hunger that goes beyond any particular issue or cause... They need an assurance that somebody out there cares about them, is listening to them.
Any politician who respects China's government should tell it openly what is in his heart. It is disrespectful to keep quiet about such issues - both vis-a-vis the government and the people concerned.
I think the Prime Minister is the first to acknowledge that Malaysia's still got some work to do. Just like the United States, by the way, has some work to do on these issues. Human Rights Watch probably has a list of things they think we should be doing as a government.
From eating meat arrogance is born, from arrogance erroneous imaginations issue, and from imagination is born greed; and for this reason refrain from eating meat.
Once we got to know each other, we had such similar impulses. We saw in a similar way, and we developed a strong friendship. We would talk on the phone for hours, philosophically and theologically, about all of these issues.