It is easy, from a safe distance, to overlook the fact that in undercities governed by corruption, where exhausted people vie on scant terrain for very little, it is blisteringly hard to be good.

But if writing about people who are not yourself is illegitimate, then the only legitimate work is autobiography; and as a reader and a citizen, I don’t want to live in that world.

...much of what was said did not matter, and that much of what mattered could not be said.

In any country, corruption tends to increase when more respectable means of social advancement break down.

I'm useless when I meet writers I love - I go slack-jawed and stupid with awe.

A great deal of what is presumed to be intractable or inevitable in this world doesn't strike me that way at all.

We often have an exaggerated sense of what nonprofits and governments are doing to help the poor, but the really inspiring thing is how much the poor are doing to help themselves.

One thing that was very clear to me is that the young people in a place like Annawadi aren't tripping on caste the way their parents are. They know their parents have these old views.

I think it's this congenital problem with journalism that we oversell the difference we make. We make small differences.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: Never trust anyone who tells you how people come to trust them.

.. becoming attached to a country involves pressing, uncomfortable questions about justice and opportunity for its least powerful citizens.

A weak mind complains about everything and loves nothing. A strong mind complains about nothing and loves everything.

Life without liberty is like a body without spirit.

I want to change the world, and do something valuable and beautiful. I want people to remember me before I'm dead, and then more afterwards.

Old fighters keep making comebacks. We are more alive when boxing than at almost any other time.

I don't pretend to anything more than harmony.

I kind of grew up on the East Coast, lived in New York for a while, then moved to L.A. So I'm not a New Yorker at all, but I'm much happier in New York; I've always liked it better.

The one thing that hinders God is our unbelief.

One of my goals is to have NO wrestler go undefeated.

I know I stand visibly onstage, but my function is still unseen, because I rarely see the immediate results of what I am saying or doing or writing.

Thirst for victory leads to defeat; not tiring of defeat leads to victory.