A woman with a voice is by definition a strong woman. But the search to find that voice can be remarkably difficult.

I think the Americans need to understand that a lot of times the children are bored in school, and that is why they are not staying in.

You are indebted to life until you help some less fortunate person, just as you were helped.

Even in decision-making, we work in self-help groups. That is women coming together in small groups of 10 to sometimes 15 women, where they start to get education about their rights, about clean water and sanitation, about how to have a healthy birth. You can bring in all kinds of education to them that way.

It is still just unbelievable to us that diarrhea is one of the leading causes of child deaths in the world.

I felt suicidal. I couldn't stop crying. I remember thinking, wouldn't it be great if the car crashed and I died?

My undergraduate work was in computer science and economics. It just happened to be at that time when 34 percent of computer-science majors were women. We didn't realize it was at the peak at the time.