I was perhaps the worst student you have ever seen. You know, I thought I was stupid, all my classmates thought I was stupid, so there was general agreement.

The reason that I proposed health savings accounts for everybody starting at birth, is because you very quickly accumulate an amount of money that you can use for your interactions with those health care providers.

'Why risk?' I responded. 'It should be, why not to risk?'

Occasionally I talk with people who see doctors as people who do nothing but give of themselves and never receive from anyone else - especially not from their patients. That is totally false. The longer I remain in my profession, the more I realize how much I receive from those who come to me for help.

An important verity about knowledge is that the brain works most effectively with consciously retained information. We more easily remember what we want to recall later. When we feed our fourteen billion brain cells with information that will enrich us and help others, we are really learning to Think Big.

Let's say somebody were [in the White House] and they wanted to destroy this nation. I would create division among the people, encourage a culture of ridicule for basic morality and the principles that made and sustained the country, undermine the financial stability of the nation, and weaken and destroy the military. It appears coincidentally that those are the very things that are happening right now.

I have this feeling that as time goes on, we're not getting any more civilized, and we should be. We're still running around like the days of Genghis Khan. There are so many important, better things to do and we need to encourage people to reach into the brighter side of humanity and not encourage people to continue to glorify the darker side.