Gayle Tzemach Lemmon

We are so used to seeing women as victims of war to be pitied rather than survivors of war to be respected. ”

The lessons I learned from my mother and her friends have guided me through death, birth, loss, love, failure, and achievement, on to a Fulbright scholarship and Harvard Business School. They taught me to believe that anything was possible. They have proven to be the strongest family values I could ever have imagined. ”

Microfinance does not require previous experience or loans to the same extent as a small-business loan, so it's easier for women to enter the micro sector. ”

In Afghanistan, life is so fragile; who knows what the next week will bring? That fragility really affects the way you're able to report, and the kind of stories people will tell you. ”

In Nigeria, along with its West African neighbor Ghana, women are now starting businesses in greater numbers than men. ”

My mother worked at the telephone company during the day and sold Tupperware at night. Evenings, she took classes when she could at University of Maryland's University College, bringing me along to do homework while she studied to get the degree she hoped would offer her and me greater opportunities. ”

No woman in Afghanistan is in business without support from either her husband or her father or her uncle, someone. ”

I don't often think of Donald Trump, but his daughter is very smart. She's a woman working in real estate, which is predominantly men, and she's both savvy and articulate about her business and her business acumen. ”

The one thing you learn from looking at places like Afghanistan is that the power of business to do good is enormous. ”

When people can't feed their children, nothing else positive happens. You don't have to look farther than the United States to see that. ”