The World According to Ma Boyle

On the best thing she learned from her parents:

"(It would be) survival. Sometimes you have a bad day, but there's a good day coming too. You shouldn't delve on 'I should have done this or I should have done that.' You can't do that. You just have to look to the next day. If you didn't do a good job today then you should just do a better job tomorrow because yesterday is never going to come around again."

On her role in product development:

"I probably criticize more than I create. When people ask me what I do, I say, 'Well, I verbally abuse as many people as I can every day.' We pay people a lot of money to go out and come up with new ideas and know what's 'in.'"

On the outdoors:

"The outdoors is wonderful. You shouldn't stay indoors; it makes you a very boring person. The outdoors does you a lot of good. I'm 84 years old and I'm probably in better health than most people. I do water aerobics thrice a week and I try to stay active by chasing after my grandkids."

On raising her kids:

"When my kids were growing up, we didn't have any money. You learn to cook hamburger 10,000 different ways. You learn about leftovers. And I can open up a mean can of tuna."

On the youth:

"It takes young people to come up with innovative ideas. They say inventors are mostly 30 and under."

On growing her business as a woman in a male-dominated industry:

"As long as you have a big mouth... It's become more acceptable for women now but back then, it wasn't. I remember one time, a guy called up and said, 'I want to speak to the president of the company' and I said, 'Speaking.' And he said, 'But you're a woman.' So I just said, 'You know, when I got up this morning, I noticed that.' Women aren't supposed to know anything but then I tell people, 'Who raised you, your father or your mother?'

"I never thought that, just because you were a woman, you shouldn't be given a chance."

Taken from The Philippine Star