“One week after I quit smoking, my three-year-old son came up to me and said, ‘Appa! You know what happens when people smoke? When people smoke, the smoke goes inside their lungs and it becomes black black like charcoal.’
‘Okay okay’
‘And, then, Appa, they die.’
At this point, I just said ‘okay’ again… And suddenly, my son began to cry.
‘Appa, all your friends smoke. They are all going to die…’
All this while, I had been lying to my children, and coming home to a pregnant wife after smoking. I had decided a week ago that I would stop. I had to respect my woman and children. If my son had said this to me a week earlier, I don’t know…. I would have died on the spot!”
“Smoking, drinking, whatever it is, these are mere habits. They don’t define the character or personality of a person. That is no way to judge who a person is from within; it’s not like you are a bad person if you smoke and a good person if you don’t. Habits are just habits. They are not a measure of character. But, of course, how you work with those habits, and whether you have the strength to let go when required… those things are a measure of character and define you as a person.”