A Great Deal Of What Is Presumed

I'm Useless When I Meet Writers I Love - I Go Slack-jawed And Stupid With Awe.

There's Some Way In Which We Would Prefer Not To See Very Clearly The Immense Gifts And Intelligence Of Some Of The People Who Live In Our Most Abject Conditions. Maybe There Are Some Things At Work In Deciding Who Gets To Be Society's Winners And Who Gets To Be Society's Losers That Don't Have To Do With Merit.

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.

In My Kind Of Reporting Work, You Don't Parachute In After Some Big, Terrible Event, Which Is Important And Has To Be Covered, But Offers Only A Glimpse. It's The Kind Of Work In Which You Ask, What Is My Understanding Of How The World Works, And Where Can I Go To See These Questions Get Worked Out In Individuals' Lives? That Was Really The Question For Me: Whether I Had Anything To Add To What Had Already Been Written.

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.