“But they had learned an important lesson about how defeating poverty is more difficult than it seems at first.”

“You don't need to invade a place or install a new government to help bring about a positive change.”

“The world spends $40 billion a year on pet food.”

“Every year 3.1 million Indian children die before the age of 5, mostly from diseases of poverty like diarrhea.”

“It was in 1931 that the historian James Truslow Adams coined the phrase “the American dream.”The American dream is not just a yearning for affluence, Adams said, but also for the chance to overcome barriers and social class, to become the best that we can be. Adams acknowledged that the United States didn’t fully live up to that ideal, but he argued that America came closer than anywhere else.”

“Americans of faith should try as hard to save the lives of African women as the lives of unborn fetuses.”

“Often we blame a region's religion when the oppression instead may be rooted in its culture. Yet, that acknowledged, it's also true that . . . it is often cited by the oppressors.”

“But they had learned an important lesson about how defeating poverty is more difficult than it seems at first.”

“In India, a "bride burning"-- to punish a woman for inadequate dowry or to eliminate her so a man can remarry-- takes place approximately once every two hours, but rarely constitute news.”

“Imagine the outcry if the Pakistani or Indian governments were burning women alive at those rates. Yet when the government is not directly involved people shrug.”

“Anybody who has spent time in Indian brothels and also, say, at Indian brick kilns knows that it is better to be enslaved working a kiln. Kiln workers most likely live together with their families, and their work does not expose them to the risk of AIDS, so there's always hope of escape down the road.”