I was teaching in one of the universities while the country was suffering from a severe famine. People were dying of hunger, and I felt very helpless. As an economist, I had no tool in my tool box to fix that kind of situation.

In a bird's eye view you tend to survey everything and decide on a particular point, then you swoop down and pick it up. In a worms eye view you don't have that advantage of looking at everything.

We developed microfinance to fight loan sharks - I was telling people don't go to loan sharks - not trying to take advantage and make money for myself. I would be a junior loan shark if I did ... It is not a panacea.

The essence of capitalism is expressed in two of its basic features: a) profit maximization and b) market competition. In their abstract formulations none of them was supposed to have anything conspiratorial against the poor. But in real life they turn out to be the "killers" of the poor - by making rich the richer and poor the poorer.

We got rid of colonialism, we got rid of slavery, and we got rid of apartheid everyone thought each one of them was impossible. Let's take the next impossible, do it with joy and get it finished with and create a world free from poverty. Let us create the world of our choice.

Poverty is the absence of all human rights. The frustrations, hostility and anger generated by abject poverty cannot sustain peace in any society.

If I could be useful to another human being, even for a day, that would be a great thing. It would be greater than all the big thoughts I could have at the university.