I don’t believe I can really do without teaching.  The reason is, I have to have something so that when I don’t have any ideas and I’m not getting anywhere I can say to myself, “At least I’m living; at least I’m doing something; I’m making some contribution”—it’s just psychological.

I sing yes sure and I garden, I have a large garden and I really recreate myself by doing gardening and thinking about something else so that when your mind gets free from all the burden of the daily troubles and then you can start putting something fresh in, you know.

Maybe it’s a little about self-belief.

I try to not think of those things that we cannot control, but I think if we continue to work with positive attitudes, conditions will be better for more people.

Monday to Friday, very, very industriously from ten in the morning ’til about six in the evening, I just sat and wrote, and revised and revised, and wrote.

Love, in so many different manifestations... normally a calm feeling, an intense and rich feeling that is based on a very beautiful emotion of connection with people, and space on earth, and in the world. Love, and respect, and admiration, and appreciation, these things flow easily into eachother.

We haven’t crossed the frontier of unemployment, of poverty, of dispossession, of landlessness, of homelessness, of lack of access to health, to education, all those different things. We just have to keep going steadily, steadily, to plan well, to involve the people and not simply deliver things from the top and hope that people will be grateful, and get upset when they’re not grateful.

I’d been introduced to Freud through all this because I couldn’t understand why is it so difficult to be brave. There was something inside me that wanted to collaborate all the time with the people who wanted to destroy me, and I was searching for it, and I found there was a thing called the unconscious that everybody has. And you’ve got to be in touch with the unconscious to understand a lot of your behavior. And I read through volume after volume after volume of the collected works of Sigmund Freud.

And I get so upset when I hear that, because are you saying: Poor people only want a roof over their heads and want food? That poor people are not interested in beauty and rights and fairness and justice?

I would love to see more joy and fun and laughter and dance and expressiveness. People are very timid.