Pico Iyer
Pico Iyer
Siddharth Pico Raghavan Iyer, known as Pico Iyer, is a British-born essayist and novelist of Indian origin, best known for his travel writing. He is the author of numerous books on crossing cultures including Video Night in Kathmandu, The Lady and the Monk and The Global Soul. An essayist for Time since 1986, he also publishes regularly in Harper's, The New York Review of Books, The New York Times, and many other publications...
NationalityIndian
ProfessionWriter
CountryIndia
turning-your-back and-love world
Going nowhere isn’t about turning your back on the world; it’s about stepping away now and then so that you can see the world more clearly and love it more deeply.
virtue dalai underestimated
I would say that by virtue of transforming politics, [Dalai Lama] is in fact easily underestimated.
racing
I suddenly realized I was racing around so much, I could never catch up with my life
hello speak kitties
Hello Kitty will never speak.
sitting-still mind relax
And it’s only by going nowhere - by sitting still or letting my mind relax - that I find that the thoughts that come to me unbidden are far fresher and more imaginative than the ones I consciously seek out.
adventure responsibility thinking
I take very seriously the sense of our living these days in a global neighborhood. And the first sensible thing to do in such circumstances, as well as one of the most rewarding things, is to go and meet the neighbors, find out who they are, and what they think and feel. So travel for me is an act of discovery and of responsibility as well a grand adventure and a constant liberation.
serendipity caprice guides
Serendipity was my tour guide, assisted by caprice
oddities worry world
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.
humility
Travel is an act of humility
buddhist heart acknowledge
The Dalai Lama acknowledges that he's met Westerners who to some extent are clearly Easterners at heart, and he would never want them not to become Buddhists just because they happened to be born in California.
tragedy comedy
Comedy is nothing more than tragedy deferred.
eden curiosity purgatory
One curiosity of being a foreigner everywhere is that one finds oneself discerning Edens where the locals see only Purgatory.
moon water way
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.
liberation knows
As soon as I'm on the road, I see, often palpably, that I know nothing at all, which is always a great liberation.