Whole communities are growing up without fathers or male role models. Bringing up a family in the best of circumstances is not easy. To try to do it by placing the entire burden on women - 91% of single-parent families in Britain are headed by the mother, according to census data - is practically absurd and morally indefensible.

While we can remember the past, we cannot write the future. Only our children, the future of our community, can do that.

Britain, relative to the U.S., is a highly secular society. Philanthropy alone cannot fill the gap left by government cutbacks. And the sources of altruism go deep into our evolutionary past.

If we are to negotiate the coming years safely, we may need a new kind of leadership. To put it more precisely, we need the rediscovery of an ancient kind of leadership that has rarely been given the prominence it deserves. I mean the leader as teacher.

There's plenty of room for humor in politics, God knows, but it's a serious business.

The man who has perceived God looks upon all types of men as dream motion-picture images, made of the relativities of the light of Cosmic Consciousness and the shadows of delusion.

If al-Qaeda had not had a home in Afghanistan, maybe 9/11 would never have taken place. God forbid if al-Qaeda gets another strong foothold in Afghanistan.

My life is art. Its how I express God.