The question before the advanced nations is not whether they can afford to help the developing nations, but whether they can afford not to do so.

Do you know that, until recently, poor people brought children into the world for the sole purpose of making use of them? But how can you change, by force or all of a sudden, an age-old habit? The only way is to plan births, by one means or another.

Yes, he [Mahatma Gandhi] was a great man. However...between me and Gandhi there was never the understanding there was between me and my father.

I don't see the world as something divided between right and left.

Do you know why I won the last elections? It was because the people liked me, yes, because I had worked, yes, but also because the opposition had behaved badly toward me. And do you know why I won this war? Because my army was able to do it, yes, but also because the Americans were on the side of Pakistan.

At first people asked us, 'Can you do it?' And we kept silent because we didn't believe in ourselves, we didn't believe that we could do things. Today people no longer say to us, 'Can you?' They say, 'When can you?' Because the Indians finally believe in themselves, they believe they can do things.

No one wanted that marriage, no one. Even Mahatma Gandhi wasn't happy about it. As for my father...it's not true that he opposed it, as people say, but he wasn't eager for it. I suppose because the fathers of only daughters would prefer to see them get married as late as possible.