When every tomorrow is uncertain, everything that is important happens todayKatherine Boo
Good fortune was random, and poverty, assaulting from every direction, was constantKatherine Boo
For the poor of a country where corruption thieved a great deal of opportunity, corruption was one of the genuine opportunities that remainedKatherine Boo
Much of what was said did not matter, and that much of what mattered could not be saidKatherine Boo
What was unfolding in Mumbai was unfolding elsewhere, too. In the age of global market capitalism, hopes and grievances were narrowly conceived, which blunted a sense of common predicamentKatherine Boo
The difficulty of entering a new high-demand profession like driving was that it was in high demandKatherine Boo
Everyone, everywhere, complained about their neighbors. But in the slum, each grievance could become a biography, because the drama played out, day after day, in five-foot-wide rooms that were never quietKatherine Boo
It is easy from a safe distance to overlook the fact that in under-cities governed by corruption, where exhausted people vie on scant terrain for very little, it is blisteringly hard to be good. The astonishment is that some people are good, and that many people try to beKatherine Boo
Having a home changes everythingKatherine Boo
Powerlessness and silence go togetherKatherine Boo