To be effective at selling ideas, at being a lobbyist, influencing other people, you have to be very sure of yourself.

When we do work in places like China and Vietnam, research tends to be really effective as a way of getting change, whereas in more open places, mobilization and the creation of public pressure through the media often seem to be the things we try.

Floundering around, learning by doing but also by failing, is not only good but inevitable.

In the end, that's a blind alley - we have to get back to being able to think on our feet and react.

Some kinds of activists are more willing to try stuff out, see if works and think on their feet, but some of the people who are working on [change] find that very difficult: They've been schooled into thinking you have to come up with the perfect plan in advance. It has become a bit technocratic.

If you were disabled in Russia, you had to re-register every year, and it took up to six months to re-register, so people who lost limbs in Afghanistan had to prove that their leg hadn't grown back.

I have to be sure of myself - in a conditional way, always being open to the possibility that I'm wrong.