Quotessence
Home / Authors / Pico Iyer
Pico Iyer

Pico Iyer Quotes

Essayist

Filter quotes by topic

AllThinkingDalaiLamaWorldWayKnowsHomePeopleYearsIfsFeelsStillsKindMindMovementTibetTravelAgeHeartTibetan

Famous Pico Iyer Quotes

“In the end, we need two things to lead a balanced life - a sense of the world and a sense of ourselves; it's like breathing in and breathing out. And if you can only get to know the world by stepping out, and losing yourself in experience, you can only get to know the self by stepping back, and finding yourself in contemplation. One without the other leads to a kind of madness.”

IfsKnowsWorldNeedsKindTwoEndsSelfMotivationalFindingsLosingMadnessBreathingContemplationTwo ThingsFinding YourselfBalancedLosing YourselfBalanced LifeStepping Back
Author:Pico Iyer
Create image

“I wanted to bring the book out right now because I think anyone who cares about Tibet knew there would be disturbances in the run up to the Olympics [2008]. Many Tibetans feel it's their last chance to broadcast their suffering and frustration and pain to the world before the Olympics take place and China is accepted as a modern nation and the world forgets about Tibet.”

ThinkingWorldFeelsBookWould BeCareRunningWantedPainLastsSufferingNationsChanceForgetModernRight NowChinaAcceptedFrustrationOlympicsWho CaresDisturbanceTibetanTibetLast Chance
Author:Pico Iyer
Create image

“I'd spent thirty years visiting the Dalai Lama, and twenty years as a journalist going to difficult places, war zones and revolutions from North Korea to Haiti and Beirut to Sri Lanka, and the question came up: What does this man have to offer to this world which seems so torn up and so attached to conflict?”

MenWorldYearsDoeWarSeemsDifficultThis WorldRevolutionOffersConflictTwentiesJournalistThirtyZoneTornKoreaNorth KoreaVisitingThirty YearsHaitiLamaDalaiSri LankaWar ZonesBeirut
Author:Pico Iyer
Create image

“Dalai Lama has made new opportunities for women that they never had in Tibet, introduced science into the monks' curriculum and had Tibetan students in exile take their classes in English after the age of ten so that they will know more about the outside world. But one of the great things he's done is to bring all the Tibetan groups together in exile, as perhaps they couldn't have been when they weren't in exile and they weren't under such pressure.”

KnowsWorldHas BeensMadeDoneAgeTogetherOpportunityClassGroupsStudentsTenPressureGreat ThingsExileMonkCurriculumOutside WorldTibetanLamaTibetNew OpportunityDalai
Author:Pico Iyer
Create image

“I am simply a fairly typical product of a movable sensibility, living and working in a world that is itself increasingly small and increasingly mongrel. I am a multinational soul on a multinational globe on which more and more countries are as polyglot and restless as airports. Taking planes seems as natural to me as picking up the phone or going to school. I fold up my self and carry it around as if it were an overnight bag.”

IfsWorldSoulSelfCountrySeemsSchoolNaturalProductsPhonesPlanesBagsGlobesSensibilityTypicalRestlessAirportsFoldsMultinationalsPolyglots
Author:Pico Iyer
Create image

“I think America the symbol and America the notion are still very different from America the nation. What's touching and almost regenerative is that whatever is happening in the reality of America, where there is a murder rate worse than Lebanon's and where there is so much homelessness and poverty, still America will be a shorthand throughout the world for everything that is young and modern and free.”

ThinkingWorldStillsDifferentRealityAmericaYoungNationsPovertyModernHappeningsMurderNotionRateSymbolsTouchingHomelessnessLebanonShorthand
Author:Pico Iyer
Create image

“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.”

PeopleThinkingWorldWayHeartKindStillsHomeDreamAmericaSpiritualSpecialAround The WorldStrongestAmerican DreamRefreshingSpecial Places
Author:Pico Iyer
Create image

“One of the interesting things about Los Angeles is that it's still supplying the whole of the world with its dreams through movies and songs and TV - often of an all-American family at the same time as the real Los Angeles is peopled by souls from Vietnam, Guatemala, and Korea who look nothing like the images being beamed out. I think all that is going to have to change and illusion is going to have to catch up with reality in that regard.”

ThinkingWorldLooksStillsRealSoulWholeDreamRealitySongInterestingTvsIllusionRegardLos AngelesVietnamKoreaInteresting ThingsAmerican FamilyGuatemala
Author:Pico Iyer
Create image

“Yes, we know more than ever before, and it's a wonder that we get to inhabit a world full of driverless cars and 3D printers. But that doesn't mean that we know any more about the essential things in life - love, faith, death - and it would be dangerous to assume we did. The only thing that gets us through sometimes is a proper, humbled sense that we don't have a clue, we can't be sure what's going to happen next and life will always be much larger than our ideas of it.”

KnowsWorldMeanIdeasSometimesHappensWould BeNextWonderDangerousCarEssentialsAssumingLove LifeThings In LifeCluePrinterFaith In Love
Author:Pico Iyer
Create image

“We travel, initially, to lose ourselves; and we travel, next to find ourselves. We travel to open our hearts and eyes and learn more about the world than our newspapers will accommodate. We travel to bring what little we can, in our ignorance and knowledge, to those parts of the globe whose riches are differently dispersed. And we travel, in essence, to become young fools again- to slow time down and get taken in, and fall in love once more.”

WorldHeartLittlesEyeYoungTimeFallNextLosesKnowledgeLearningTakenIgnoranceFoolTravelEssenceDown AndFalling In LoveRichesNewspapersWanderFinding YourselfOpennessTime TravelGlobesTraveledTravelerAccommodateLosing YourselfInspiring TravelTravel The WorldTravel AdventureAdventure And TravelSeeing The WorldRoads TraveledWant To TravelTravel AbroadLearning MoreTravel BugTravel And CultureDispersionYou Live And Learn
Author:Pico Iyer
Create image

“What more could one ask of a companion? To be forever new and yet forever steady, to be strange and familiar all at once, with enough change to quicken my mind, enough steadiness to give sanctuary to my heart. The books on my shelf never asked to come together and they would not trust or want to listen to one another. But each is a piece of a stained-glass whole, without which I wouldn’t make sense to myself or to the world outside.”

WorldWantGivingMindHeartBookEnoughWholeTogetherAsksForeverPiecesStrangeMy HeartGlassesFamiliarMake SenseCompanionSteadyShelvesSanctuarySteadinessStained Glass
Author:Pico Iyer
Create image

“I loved the quiet places in Kyoto, the places that held the world within a windless moment. Inside the temples, Nature held her breath. All longing was put to sleep in the stillness, and all was distilled into a clean simplicity. The smell of woodsmoke, the drift of incense; a procession of monks in black-and-gold robes, one of them giggling in a voice yet unbroken; a touch of autumn in the air, a sense of gathering rain.”

WorldMomentsBlackVoiceSleepAirQuietRainGoldBreathsLongingCleanSimplicitySmellTemplesAutumnStillnessGatheringMonkRobesUnbrokenProcessionIncenseKyotoQuiet Place
Author:Pico Iyer
Create image