Melinda Gates

“Microsoft certainly makes products for the Macintosh.”

“Having children made us look differently at all these things that we take for granted, like taking your child to get a vaccine against measles or polio.”

“I realized that the only way to get into a good college was to be valedictorian or salutatorian. So that was my goal.”

“I think it's very important that we instill in our kids that it has nothing to do with their name or their situation that they're growing up in; it has to do with who they are as an individual.”

“It is still just unbelievable to us that diarrhea is one of the leading causes of child deaths in the world.”

“If you are successful, it is because somewhere, sometime, someone gave you a life or an idea that started you in the right direction. Remember also that you are indebted to life until you help some less fortunate person, just as you were helped.”

“I care much more about saving the lives of mothers and babies than I do about a fancy museum somewhere.”

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

“You can have the best vaccines for a woman or her child, but if you can't get her to come and get them then they won't work.”

“But we also believe in taking risks, because that's how you move things along.”

“The premise of this foundation is one life on this planet is no more valuable than the next.”

“We started this mostly from an intellectual place.”

“You can't save kids just with vaccines.”

“We would be driving down the street in a place like Zaire, now the Democratic Republic of Congo, and started to see, my gosh, the only people that have shoes are men. Why does that woman have a baby in her belly and one on her back, and she's carrying a huge load of bananas? You start to ask these questions.”

“I learn in a different way. I learn experientially.”

“There's a false perception that women in Africa somehow don't love their babies they way we do, don't grieve their loss the way we would. That is simply not true.”

“After a number of years dating, we decided we were good partners.”

“There are absolutely lots of teachers who are trying to come into the profession, but they are not attracted enough to say, 'I'm going to switch careers to do it,' or they are often not retained... because the salaries and the compensation aren't there to make it happen.”

“I'm wholehearted about whatever I do.”

“I think the Americans need to understand that a lot of times the children are bored in school, and that is why they are not staying in.”