We have to remember that the girls and the women are most isolated and violated and victimized and made invisible in those very societies where our men and our boys feel disempowered, unable to provide.

Why do some people stop growing at age 30, just going from work to the couch and television, when others stay vibrant, curious, almost childlike into their nineties?

There are cases where government-to-government aid actually has worked. Look at the eradication of smallpox and the near eradication of polio. But these are really top down solutions that require government-to-government support and aid.

When I first went to Africa, I thought that I was personally going to save the continent, if not the world.

Sometimes the most important things that we do are things we cannot measure.

By going from the bottom-up again, we see where successes work, and you can also see where the status quo can be the biggest obstacle or roadblock to success. The kind of entrepreneurs in whom we need to invest are the kind who are willing to fight that status quo, bureaucracy, complacency, and corruption.

Each of us can work to change a small portion of events. And it's in the total of all those acts that the history of this generation will be written.