Philanthropy is not about the money. It's about using whatever resources you have at your fingertips and applying them to improving the world.

We [with Bill Gates] started to make decisions about what we'd invest in. Then I actually started traveling for the foundation. I've probably been to India now eight times at least and Africa numerous times.

The fact that 98 percent of women in [the U.S.] who are sexually experienced say they use birth control doesn't make sex any less sacred. It just means that they're getting to make choices about their lives.

If we're going to make progress on this issue [of contraception], we have to be really clear about what our agenda is. We're not talking about abortion. We're not talking about population control. What I'm talking about is giving women the power to save their lives, to save their children's lives and to give their families the best possible future.

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

If you can't go to secondary school, the boys get to go and the girls don't, you're locked into a cycle of poverty, because you don't have a chance.

I'm constantly saying to myself, 'I'm lucky I was born in the United States.