Until I was about eighteen, yes [I didn't want to get married]. But not because I felt like a suffragette, but because I wanted to devote all my energies to the struggle to free India. Marriage, I thought, would have distracted me from the duties I'd imposed on myself.

Happiness is such a fleeting point of view - there's no such thing as continual happiness.

Being prime minister isn't the only job in life! As far as I'm concerned, I could live in a village and be satisfied.

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.

In India's distant past, when the population was low, the blessing given a woman was, 'May you have many children.' Most of our epics and literature stress this wish, and the idea that a woman should have many children hasn't declined.

Mankind will endure when the world appreciates the logic of diversity.

As for the job of prime minister, I like it, yes. But no more than I've liked other work that I've done as an adult.