You just decide what your values are in life and what you are going to do, and then you feel like you count, and that makes life worth living. It makes my life meaningful.

I'm very intrigued that in this culture of reality television and celebrity - which is an enormous industry and generates billions and billions of dollars - we're so resourceful.

In a way, it's all down to perception, isn't it? And everyone has their own take on everything.

There's always darkness around, and if you focus on the darkness, you don't know where to go. But if you direct yourself at the light - there it is! It's right there.

I can't understand why the front pages of newspapers can cover bird flu and swine flu and everybody is up in arms about that and we still haven't really woken up to the fact that so many women in sub-Saharan Africa - 60 percent of people in - infected with HIV are women.

When women get together as a group, it is immensely powerful.

The worst thing someone gets is isolated. Isolation is the darkest part of any condition. You can live with almost any condition if you're living within a community of people who can share a common understanding. We create these communities from women who share common conditions, and those mothers carry each other through.