[O]ur greatest contributions to the cause of freedom and development overseas is not what we do over there, but what we do right here at home.

We can't see ahead of time what actions are going to be the ones that move history in dramatic ways.

I had no identity [when I was 27] - I was terrified that somebody would ask me what I was doing, and I would have no answer.

What was so moving for [Diane Wilson], and also for me, is that she felt the Bay itself was like her grandmother. She said, "I don't think there's a woman alive who would give up fighting for her child, or her mother, or her grandmother."

There are surprising turning points; there is the straw that breaks the camel's back, and you never know if your action could be the straw.

Hunger is a people-made phenomenon, so the central issue is power: the power of those who make the decisions about what is grown and who, or what, it's grown for.

Recent breakthroughs in science show we have just the capacities we need to face our planet's challenges. We're "soft-wired" for cooperation, empathy, fairness, along with a deep need to "make a dent," as social philosopher Erich Fromm put it. My hunch is that one reason depression is a global pandemic is that the dominant mental map denies so many of us expression of these deep needs and capacities.