"She was one of the most beautiful women ever, one of the most successful. Even the President of America, Kennedy, was in love with her, and she had thousands of lovers. One cannot think of what more you can have. She had everything. But she was public and she knew it. Even in her love chamber when President Kennedy would be there she used to address him as Mr. President – as if one was making love not to a man, but to an institution. She was an institution. By and by she became aware that she had nothing private. Once somebody asked her – she had just posed for a nude calendar and somebody asked, 'Did you have anything on while you posed for the nude calendar?'

"She said, 'Yes, I had something on. The radio.'

"Exposed, nude, no private self. My feeling is that she committed suicide because that was the only thing left she could have done privately. Everything was public, that was the only thing left she could do on her own, alone – something absolutely intimate and secret. Public figures are always tempted towards suicide because only through suicide can they have a glimpse of who they are.

"All that is beautiful is inner, and the inner means privacy. Have you watched women making love? They always close their eyes. They know something. A man goes on making love with open eyes, he remains a watcher also. He is not completely in the act, he is not totally in it. He remains a voyeur, as if somebody else is making love and he is watching, as if the love-making is going on on a TV screen or in a movie. But a woman knows better because she is more delicately tuned to the inner. She always closes her eyes. Then love has a totally different fragrance.

"One day do one thing: run the bath and then switch the light on and off. When there is darkness you will hear the water falling more clearly, the sound will be sharp. When the light is on, the sound will be not so sharp. What happens in darkness? In darkness, everything else disappears because you cannot see."