My mother told me if I work hard and I really believed in American principles and I believed in God, anything is possible. That's why I'm not anxious to give away American values and principles for the sake of political correctness.

A lot of people who go into prison go into prison straight - and when they come out, they're gay.

In my own personal life, God plays a great role in the risk, because I pray before I go into the operating room for every case, and I ask him to give me wisdom, to help me to know what to do - and not only for operating, but for everything.

I could easily have decided that life was cruel, that being black meant everything was stacked against me.

Knowledge makes people special. Knowledge enriches life itself.

I see the insurance issue, the coverage of people for healthcare in our country as a huge moral issue. The richest country in the world to have 47 million people without health insurance is ridiculous.

God has opened many doors of opportunity throughout my lifetime, but I believe the greatest of those doors was allowing me to be born in the United States of America.