Quotes from Melinda Gates

Women around the world should have a tool that helps them plan their pregnancies.

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.

Kids are falling through the cracks and nobody notices it. That to me is what's wrong with the school system.

A woman with a voice is, by definition, a strong woman.

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.

You can't save kids just with vaccines.

All lives have an equal value.

Now we just really need to do the work, which we're doing, to get contraceptives out to women worldwide.

We set out what's going to be our work time versus our foundation time versus family time, and we'll reassess that... sometimes every week.

Abortion has become a very politicised issue that I think countries have to work out themselves. In a lot of countries, people can't even yet agree on what their laws should be.

I felt suicidal. I couldn't stop crying. I remember thinking, wouldn't it be great if the car crashed and I died?

If you can't go to secondary school, the boys get to go and the girls don't, you're locked into a cycle of poverty, because you don't have a chance.

My background was computer science and business school, so eventually I worked my way up where I was running product groups - development, testing, marketing, user education.

When we better understand the realities of these women's lives, we are able to design and deliver solutions that are more useful to them.

It's important to remember that behind every data point is a daughter, a mother, a sister—a person with hopes and dreams.

The fact that 98 percent of women in [the U.S.] who are sexually experienced say they use birth control doesn't make sex any less sacred. It just means that they're getting to make choices about their lives.

That's universal — we all want to bring every good thing to our children. But what's not universal is our ability to provide every good thing.

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

We talk a lot in our home together about where we're going, what I'm doing.

My background was computer science and business school, so eventually I worked my way up where I was running product groups - development, testing, marketing, user education.