“The process of breaking down fear was always my greatest challenge and it was made easier by the careful work and gentle voices of my female workers.”

“...one cannot but wonder how an environment can make people despair and sit idle and then, by changing the conditions, one can transform the same people into matchless performers.”

“The poor themselves can create a poverty-free world. All we have to do is to free them from the chains that we have put around them!”

“The system we have built refuses to recognize people. Only credit cards are recognized. Drivers' licenses are recognized. But not people. People haven't any use for faces anymore, it seems. They ar...”

“UN studies conducted in more than forty developing countries show that the birth rate falls as women gain equality... I believe income-earning opportunities that empower poor women ... will have mo...”

“Changes are products of intensive efforts.”

“He could almost hear the wail of pain that went up from his heart. It was a sharp terrible personal pain the kind of pain that comes only when someone to whom you have never done any harm turns on ...”

“Time is on the side of the oppressed today, it's against the oppressor. Truth is on the side of the oppressed today, it's against the oppressor. You don't need anything else.”

“If the misery of the poor be caused not by the laws of nature, but by our institutions, great is our sin.”

“[W]hen it's slow, they send you home, and when it's busy, they expect you to stay late. They also expect you to be able to come in to cover someone's shift if a co-worker gets sick at the last minu...”

“Poverty entails fear, and stress, and sometimes depression; it means a thousand petty humiliations and hardships. Climbing out of poverty by your own efforts, that is indeed something on which to p...”

“A man may beg, but a woman has to sell.”