Who said 'if you haven't started on the Buddhist path then don't start at all'?
The book Meditation for Everyone: a 12 Step Guide attributes it -- without any certainty -- to the Dalai Lama.



That's all I found, via a quick Google search.

I guess the attribution is plausible, compare it with this quote for example, and so on.

But "plausible" doesn't mean "true", and that may be only a paraphrase.