How I Learned to Understand the World: A Memoir

"Patients, relatives, and the hospital staff taught me how to put up with the knowledge that I could not achieve everything I set out to do. Also—one of hardest things for me to accept—that, in the end, it was up to the patient. Slowly, I grasped that everyone, even the poorest, who were often the most superstitious, was fundamentally wise when faced with the toughest decisions of their lives."

"It was consistently difficult to foresee the different ways that having very limited resources would impact us. Insufficient transport for fuel and medicine, and a lack of skilled staff and decent equipment, didn’t just hamper our ability to achieve what we set out to do; it made it almost impossible to even predict what might be achievable."

"There is something deceptive about the battle against epidemics. You are duly praised for the immediate, dramatic actions. But it is building and managing a better community that saves the greatest number of lives; the steady, unrelenting work that goes into this rarely receives the attention it deserves."

"He called himself a “possibilist” and always strived to convince his audience that it was possible to make the world a place where everyone had a fair chance of living a life on reasonable terms."

"“Whether people do or don’t believe in God isn’t important, what counts is how they treat their fellow men.” And: “Some people are church-goers, others take walks in the forest and enjoy nature.”"

"It can be difficult to persuade oneself to prioritize thinking rather than feeling, but it can be done through careful tallying and thinking clearly about the data."

"What is more difficult is to develop a country suffering from the illiteracy, disease, and extreme poverty left in the wake of generations of colonial rule."