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Pico Iyer

Pico Iyer Quotes

Essayist

Pico Iyer is a renowned British essayist known for his profound travel literature and philosophical reflections. His works explore themes such as globalization, cultural differences, and personal identity, becoming an important voice in contemporary literature. Born on February 11, 1957, Iyer grew up in the UK and studied philosophy at Oxford University. His extensive travels around the world, from India to Japan, from Africa to the United States, have profoundly influenced his writing.

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Famous Pico Iyer Quotes

“Like the moon on the water, in a way. When you confront a Zen master, what you're really seeing are not his limitations but yours.”

Way Water Seeing Masters Moon Limitation Zen Master

Author:Pico Iyer

“Its no coincidence that the word holiday suggests a holy day, or that the longest book in the Torah concerns the Sabbath. If you wish to advance in any sphere, the best way is to take a retreat.”

Ifs Way Book Wish Holy Concern Best Way Holiday Spheres Coincidence Retreat Sabbath Torah Holy Days

Author:Pico Iyer

“In the past, Ive visited remote places - North Korea, Ethiopia, Easter Island - partly as a way to visit remote states of mind: remote parts of myself that I wouldnt ordinarily explore.”

Way Mind States Past Islands State Of Mind Easter Korea North Korea Ethiopia Remote Places Easter Island

Author:Pico Iyer

“Writing of every kind is a way to wake oneself up and keep as alive as when one has just fallen in love.”

Way Writing Kind Alive Oneself Fallen Travel Writing

Author:Pico Iyer

“The Australians, it seems to me, thrive on their remoteness from the world and see it as a way of keeping up a code of "No worries, mate," while peddling their oddities to visitors: nonconformity is at once a fact of life for many, and a selling point.”

World Way Facts Seems Worry Selling Code Thrive Mates Facts Of Life Visitors Nonconformity Oddities No Worries Remoteness Peddling

Author:Pico Iyer

“Suffering is a privilege. It moves us toward thinking of essential things and shakes us out of complacency. Calamity cracks you open, moves you to change your ways.”

Thinking Way Moving Suffering Essentials Privilege Shakes Cracks Calamity Complacency

Author:Pico Iyer

“Traveling is a way to reverse time, to a small extent, and make a day last a year - or at least forty-five hours - and traveling is an easy way of surrounding ourselves, as in childhood, with what we cannot understand.”

Way Years Lasts Easy Hours Five Childhood Forty Reverse Easy Way

Author:Pico Iyer

“More than any religious figure that I can think of, Dalai Lama goes out of his way to attend interfaith conferences; religious harmony is one of his urgent priorities in life.”

Thinking Way I Can Religious Figures Harmony Priorities Conferences Urgent Interfaith Lama Dalai Priorities In Life

Author:Pico Iyer

“I think of the Dalai Lama as a doctor of the mind offering medicine and specific counsel and cures in the way a great doctor would.”

Thinking Way Mind Doctors Medicine Cures Offering Lama Dalai

Author:Pico Iyer

“When I was two years old, I heard about his [Dalai Lama] flight from Tibet. Being very little, I said, "Oh, good Tibetans, bad Chinese." Those were the black-and-white ways that I thought.”

Way Years Littles Said Two Black White Heard Flight Chinese Two Years Black And White Tibetan Lama Tibet Dalai Two Year Olds

Author:Pico Iyer

“Dalai Lama is transforming those criteria - and the whole way of conducting politics. He's conducting politics in a much deeper way than most politicians are able to. He's the only politician I know of who's a monk. The Pope, of course, is in a similar position, but the Pope isn't in the same way leading a country of many million people.”

People Knows Way Country Whole Able Courses Millions Position Politician Deeper Pope Monk Criteria Transforming Conducting Lama Dalai

Author:Pico Iyer

“He [Dalai Lama] feels, and I feel, and everyone feels the suffering and frustration of the Tibetans who long for action, who long for a militant response. But, in some ways very few of those individuals have ever been in the position of being head of state.”

Way Feels Long States Action Suffering Individual Position Response Frustration Tibetan Militant Lama Dalai Head Of State

Author:Pico Iyer

“Adventure today means finding one's way back to the silence and stillness of a thousand years ago.”

Way Years Mean Today Silence Adventure Thousand Findings Years Ago Stillness Thousand Years

Author:Pico Iyer

“Home is essentially a set of values you carry around with you and, like a turtle or a snail or whatever, home has to be something that is part of you and can be equally a part of you wherever you are. I think that not having a home is a good inducement to creating a metaphysical home and to being able to see it in more invisible ways.”

Thinking Way Home Able Values Creating Invisible Metaphysical Turtles Wherever You Are Snail

Author:Pico Iyer

“I think that mass communications as well as mass travel have made the whole world available to us in ways that they haven't been. As with any kind of freedom, the more of it that one has the greater the need for limit and restraint. But I think that it's a nice challenge to be saddled with.”

Thinking World Way Needs Wells Kind Made Whole Challenges Greater Nice Havens Communication Limits Mass Available Whole World Restraint Mass Communication

Author:Pico Iyer

“I like the way that American has become a kind of spiritual home even for people who have never seen it. American dreams are strongest of all in the hearts of people who have only seen America in their dreams. I think it's refreshing and reviving to go around the world and see how America still occupies this special place.”

People Thinking World Way Heart Kind Stills Home Dream America Spiritual Special Around The World Strongest American Dream Refreshing Special Places

Author:Pico Iyer

“Because I don't belong entirely to Britain or the U.S. or India or Japan, I build my foundations in some way deeper than mere passports, and more in the light of where I'm going than of "where I come from."”

Way Light India Foundation Mere Deeper Britain Japan Passports

Author:Pico Iyer

“As Thoreau famously sead, it doesn't matter where or how far you go - the farther commonly the worse - the important thing is how alive you are. Writing of every kind is a way to wake oneself up and keep as alive as when one has just fallen in love.”

Way Writing Kind Important Matter Alive Important Things Oneself Fallen

Author:Pico Iyer

“Travel spins us round in two ways at once: It shows us the sights and values and issues that we might ordinarily ignore; but it also, and more deeply, shows us all the parts of ourselves that might otherwise grow rusty.”

Way Two Shows Might Values Grows Issues Travel Sight Rounds Two Ways

Author:Pico Iyer

“To step away from the world isn't to draw back; it's actually a way to tune in.”

World Way Inspiring Steps Draws Tunes Influential

Author:Pico Iyer

“The more ways we have to connect, the more many of us seem desperate to unplug.”

Way Seems Desperate

Author:Pico Iyer

“We have more and more ways to communicate, as Thoreau noted, but less and less to say.”

Way Communicate

Author:Pico Iyer

About the Author

Born: February 11, 1957
Known for: Essayist
Quotes: 188

Related Topics

Thinking Dalai Lama World Way Knows Home People Years Ifs Feels Stills Kind Mind Movement Tibet Travel Age Heart Tibetan

Popular Topics

People Ifs Thinking Knows Men World Way Want Love Life Inspirational Needs Giving Feels Should Writing Trying Years Mind Firsts

Books & Sources

The Lady and the Monk: Four Seasons in KyotoRelated source material

The Art of Stillness: Adventures in Going NowhereRelated source material

The GateRelated source material

The Global Soul: Jet Lag, Shopping Malls, and the Search for HomeRelated source material

Tropical Classical: Essays from Several DirectionsRelated source material

A Beginner's Guide to Japan: Observations and ProvocationsRelated source material

The Man Within My Head: Graham Greene, My Father and MeRelated source material

Video Night in Kathmandu: And Other Reports from the Not-So-Far EastRelated source material

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