23 Quotes by Joanne Liu

Sometimes in your career, you are at the right place at the right moment. But you have to be aware that eventually you may no longer be the right person for that position. So build your succession and foster for it while you are still at the peak of you career.

Nations don't have friends; they have interests. The best motivation for a state to act if it is remote from an epidemic is if its own security is at risk.

I worked in Syria on the front lines, and you hear the plane, you hear the shell is dropping, you realize it's not on you - 'Good' - and then you see the patients coming in and take care of them. And then you have down time. With Ebola, it seems there's no down time. It seems you're always at the front line; you're always exposed.

People inspire me. Every day, I meet amazing individuals in the field. When I see a mother who has walked for three weeks to come to a MSF clinic, with two kids on her back and her belongings on her head, facing intimidation and physical abuse on her way, I am inspired by her resilience - her desire for life.

I'm completely allergic to being politically correct.

I am absolutely convinced there should be financial and political incentives for states to declare. You shouldn't be the pariah of the world if you say you have Ebola, but in reality this is what happens.

In the ongoing effort to combat Ebola, more needs to be done to rewrite the public-health narrative. It must move from one that has been infused with fear to one that recognizes the hope for survival that supportive care can offer infected people.

I don't think you just can put people on the starting block and then wait... for the next Ebola-like epidemic. I think that you need somehow a small-capacity response who's going to run the first few kilometers of the marathon.

Our humanitarian aid system is sick and needs to be fixed. It needs to get a reality check and get back humanity.