I was an economist now turning into a human being - as if these are two different things. I don't know but I did that and then I had no vision.

If the basic structure of Grameen is changed, the worry is that the poor women who are the rightful owners of the bank will be disenfranchised.

...one cannot but wonder how an environment can make people despair and sit idle and then, by changing the conditions, one can transform the same people into matchless performers.

The process of breaking down fear was always my greatest challenge and it was made easier by the careful work and gentle voices of my female workers.

Poor people always pay back their loans. [...] It is us, the designers of institutions and rules, who keep creating trouble for them.

We believe that poverty does not belong in a civilized human society. It belongs in museums [...] A poverty-free world might not be perfect, but it would be the best approximation of the ideal.

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