We have the tools, but we have to learn how to use them. That is my political philosophy.

When the problems in Northern Ireland started, it was not a question of Protestantism or Catholicism, because the Catholic church was the only church at that time-it was a nationalist conflict.

That is where consensus-building begins-with the idea that you have your own truth, but that the negotiator on the other side of the table has his own truth as well.

Discussion is just a tool. You have to aim; the final goal must be a decision.

Organizations are accumulations of historical debris. They are not consciously thought. So when you ask the Education Ministry ‘What's your core function and who's your client?' they laugh at you. When I say that the client is the Afghan child - and the Ministry is an instrument, not the goal - it's greeted with shock. It's a new idea."

While I did not get any formal training in acting, every summer vacation, from the age of five, my father would take me to Ooty with him, and I would do films as a child star. I did over 10 films like that, and it was understood that post finishing my education, I would become an actor.

Research shows that there is only half as much variation in student achievement between schools as there is among classrooms in the same school. If you want your child to get the best education possible, it is actually more important to get him assigned to a great teacher than to a great school.

It is as impossible to withhold education from the receptive mind, as it is impossible to force it upon the unreasoning.