Tracy Kidder Quotes

I am excited to work with NBC News to continue to highlight stories of organizations and individuals who make their communities and our world healthier, more just and more humane.

I always say, as an actress, I get to portray the human condition, but as an activist, I get to change the human condition.

Whatever the issue is, whether it's Ebola or something else, I just want to get involved. Sometimes, even if it's just my time or my words, if my involvement changes people from donating $1 to $2, then I'll do it.

I have spent a lot of my life trying to do good and be a humanitarian, to write about difficult places, and to tell the story of oppressed peoples.

If you were to ask me what I want to do - I don't want to be a celebrity, I want to make a difference.

Some of the greatest social reformers of our time were wealthy.

I entered medicine to use it as a vehicle for social change.

I've had some interesting roles along the way, but they tend to be cause-driven. They're always about something. There isn't time for character work as an actor because you're fighting the cause or mourning the child or fighting the disease, etc.

I never planned on doing a book about Paul Farmer or his organization. I met him in Haiti when I was on a magazine assignment. It's almost like his story sort of fell in my lap.

I feel that the most rewarding thing I have ever done in my life is to be associated with UNICEF.

I am always in awe of people who devote their lives to a good cause and are brave enough to take a stance, though it may be controversial in their time.

I'm part of an important movement that needs to happen.

A calling is you feel - you look out and see the need - maybe it's the need for the poor, to help poor people. Maybe it's the need to get involved in the race problem, as Martin Luther King was - felt called.

When enough people care about autism or diabetes or global warming, it helps everyone, even if only a tiny fraction actively participate.

Society needs hundreds of hundreds of thousands of Chen Guangbiaos.

I'm not an activist; I don't look for controversy. I'm not a political person, but I'm a person with compassion. I care passionately about equal rights. I care about human rights. I care about animal rights.

I'm a physician. I've been blessed with ideas and resources to use technology to make the world a better place. That's what I would like to leave behind.

First I became U.N. Goodwill Ambassador for WHO, and that was in 2005. And then, about a year or so later, I decided to start my foundation.

There's no shortage of great young activists.

Philanthropy is activism.

I was a very serious young man, very committed to saving the world.

I have an activist's desire to improve people's lives.

Through their 'Making a Difference' franchise, I am excited to work with NBC News to continue to highlight stories of organizations and individuals who make their communities and our world healthier, more just and more humane.

I believe in the Corporal Works of Mercy, the Ten Commandments, the American Declaration of Independence and James Connolly’s outline of a socialist society… Most of my life I’ve been called a lunatic because I believe that I am my brother’s keeper. I organize poor and exploited workers, I fight for the civil rights of minorities, and I believe in peace. It appears to have become old-fashioned to make social commitments — to want a world free of war, poverty and disease. This is my religion

If I choose to keep my opinions and my activism to myself, then I'm not effecting any change in my time here on Earth.