You have the refugee crisis triggered by Syria. That's got a lot of costs associated with it. Domestically, budgets are incredibly tight because the economy's not generating the growth that makes for easy trade-offs.

It is hard to sell Congress and the American people on foreign aid. Is it harder to do that than it is to sell billionaires on the idea that they should give all their money away.

I’ve been waiting more than 30 years to say this: “Dad, I always told you I’d come back and get my degree.” I want to thank Harvard for this timely honor. I’ll be changing my job next year … and it will be nice to finally have a college degree on my resume.

The Green Revolution focused on the big three - maize, rice and wheat - and the Green Revolution did not adapt the big three to African conditions, other than South Africa, as much as they should have.

I have drifted away from thinking about these philanthropic things. And it was only as the wealth got large enough and Melinda and I had talked about the view that wealth wasn't something that would be good to just pass to the children.

Drones overall will be more impactful than I think people recognize in positive ways to help society.

Any machine that can run a browser is not thin. The browser has to be the thickest application man has ever invented, and it's getting thicker faster than anything ever development by man.