"When I was a child, I remember my mother sometimes exclaiming that I was too inquisitive. They always complained about my inquisitiveness. I always wanted to ask questions"

"The difference in our heights was getting closer. So I, you know, as a child, I didn't realize I was getting taller. So I asked my grandmom, why are you getting shorter? Because to me, I could see that she seemed to be getting shorter. And then she simply told me that when people get older, they get shorter. She (grandmother) was more patient with me”"

"But my mother, because she was working in the bank, and then she had more demand on her time, was quite impatient with my incessant questions"

"When I looked at statistics, from what they were saying, it was more like everywhere you go, you could do statistics"

"When I asked myself, 'what do you really want to do', I enjoyed teaching Sunday school classes, I always loved research, I loved being in the library, I loved finding out, and I told myself, look, if this is what you want to do, if you have just one chance again in life to get it right, what would you do? So I told myself, I want to do research and I want to be in academia"

"During my research, I found out that poverty seemed to have the face of a woman"