The resilience and the resourcefulness of people to make a better life, to survive, to give their children something better than they had, is so inspiring. I look at how hard it must be to get up every day and fight that battle and I think, Wow, anything I'm doing just has to be in service.

When the Berlin Wall fell and suddenly all those countries had burgeoning democracies, women were still being left out. The big turning point, about ten years ago, was moving from a notion of empowering women to actually looking at where you can make the most difference, and it's in a girl's life.

Being poor is not like being a victim. Being poor means that you don't have one resource.

Gender data is important. If girls don’t have a birth certificate, how do we know how many are marrying as children?

Collaboration gets me excited.

Phones are powerful at providing information.

If you can get to a girl and make a difference in her life, you're actually going to have a greater impact on a woman's life. If you don't get to her as a girl, you may not be able ever to help her as a woman.