"I sat down in 1989 and I made up my mind at that point that I was going to spend the rest of my life assisting women and youth to gain social and political empowerment through business and education. I convinced myself economic empowerment of women was going to be key, especially in a country like this where most women didn't go to school."

"Overall, I have formed three major organizations: the National Association of Business Women, the Young Women's Leaders Network, and the Joyce Banda Foundation. Under the foundation, we have a huge program that targets women to teach them about HIV and other diseases and to give them economic empowerment."

"I got married at 22 and remained in an abusive marriage for 10 years. I made up my mind that that was never going to happen to me again. I made a brave step to walk out in a society when you didn't walk out of an abusive marriage. It was mental and physical abuse."

"What I am saying every day to Malawians is that time has come for us to move from aid to trade. We have picked several sectors that we think we can focus on immediately in order for us to grow our economy. So we have decided to diversify agriculture, we decided to develop our tourism sector, we have decided to develop our mining sector."

"We have the duty to protect the life of an unborn child."

"A family's photograph album is generally about the extended family and, often, is all that remains of it."

"The dirty little secret is that I grew up in a household where there were no carbohydrates allowed, ever. No cookies, no bread, no potatoes, no rice. My mother was very extreme in terms of what she served. Since I left home more than 40 years ago, I've been making it right for myself."

"Because I didn't have brothers, I was always interested in the kids down the street that had four brothers in their family, so I became one of them - but it was not my family. I've always been attracted to temporary families. They tend to be lost characters."