I have been dealing with illness and its manifestations since I was a teenager, and I think that gives me a very healthy respect for the things in life we can’t control. Katherine Boo Read Quote
In any country, corruption tends to increase when more respectable means of social advancement break down. Katherine Boo Read Quote
We talk a lot about infrastructure in cities, and it’s talking about highways and it’s talking about trains, but I think more important to people who are low income is, how do I get from here to there? How do I become part of the affluence that’s surrounding me? Katherine Boo Read Quote
I was spending a lot of time in Mumbai after I met my husband, who is Indian, and while parts of the city were prospering like crazy, I couldn’t quite make out how the new wealth had changed the prospects of the majority of city residents who lived in slums. So after a few years I stopped wondering and started reporting. Katherine Boo Read Quote
People naturally long for a bit of the wealth that is whorling all around them, and if the work and education available to them won’t get them closer to the comforts that they see others enjoying, the temptation to take shortcuts can be fierce. Katherine Boo Read Quote
A great deal of what is presumed to be intractable or inevitable in this world doesn’t strike me that way at all. Katherine Boo Read Quote
People talk about places like Mumbai as a tale of two cities, as if the rich and poor don’t have anything to do with each other. Katherine Boo Read Quote
For myself, suffering doesnt make me a good person; it makes me selfish. Why do we think that people who have less should find it edifying? Katherine Boo Read Quote
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. Katherine Boo Read Quote
