“One thing that was very clear to me is that the young people in a place like Annawadi aren't tripping on caste the way their parents are. They know their parents have these old views.” PeopleKnowsWayYoungParentViewsClearOne ThingCastesTripping Author:Katherine Boo
“There's some way in which we would prefer not to see very clearly the immense gifts and intelligence of some of the people who live in our most abject conditions. Maybe there are some things at work in deciding who gets to be society's winners and who gets to be society's losers that don't have to do with merit.” PeopleWayConditionsWinnerMeritLoserImmense Author:Katherine Boo
“I've said it before and I'll say it again: Never trust anyone who tells you how people come to trust them.” PeopleSaidNever TrustNever Trust Anyone Author:Katherine Boo
“As a reporter, you know the tropes of how stories on poverty work in any country. A reporter will go to an NGO and say, "Tell me about the good work that you're doing and introduce me to the poor people who represent the kind of help you give." It serves to streamline the storytelling, but it gives you a lopsided cosmos in which almost every poor person you read about is involved with a NGO helping him. Our understanding of poverty and how people escape from poverty, in any country, is quite distorted.” PeopleGivingKindCountryHelpingUnderstandingPoorPovertyStorytellingIntroducingGood WorkPoor People Author:Katherine Boo
“When I pick a story, I'm very much aware of the larger issues that it's illuminating. But one of the things that I, as a writer, feel strongly about is that nobody is representative. That's just narrative nonsense. People may be part of a larger story or structure or institution, but they're still people. Making them representative loses sight of that. Which is why a lot of writing about low-income people makes them into saints, perfect in their suffering.” PeopleWritingSufferingPerfectSaintNonsense Author:Katherine Boo
“People naturally long for a bit of the wealth that is whorling all around them, and if the work and education available to them won't get them closer to the comforts that they see others enjoying, the temptation to take shortcuts can be fierce.” PeopleIfsLongBitsEnjoyWealthComfortAvailableTemptationFierceShortcutsShort Cuts Author:Katherine Boo
“It seemed to him that in Annawadi, fortunes derived not just from what people did, or how well they did it, but from the accidents and catastrophes they dodged. A decent life was the train that hadn’t hit you, the slumlord you hadn’t offended, the malaria you hadn’t caught.” PeopleWellsTrainFortuneCaughtAccidentsDecentCatastropheOffendedMalariaDecent Life Book:Behind the Beautiful Forevers: Life, Death and Hope in a Mumbai Slum Source: Behind the Beautiful Forevers: Life, Death and Hope in a Mumbai Slum
“But if writing about people who are not yourself is illegitimate, then the only legitimate work is autobiography; and as a reader and a citizen, I don’t want to live in that world.” PeopleIfsWorldWantWritingReaderCitizensAutobiography Author:Katherine Boo
“My job is to lay it out clearly, not to give my policy prescriptions.Very little journalism is world changing. But if change is to happen, it will be because people with power have a better sense of what’s happening to people who have none.” PeopleIfsWorldGivingLittlesHappensJobsPolicyHappeningsLaysJournalismPrescriptions Author:Katherine Boo
