Success is a lousy teacher. It makes you think you know what you're doing.

I really do think cancer will largely be a solved problem. I think most of the infectious diseases like malaria - our foundation is very involved - once we're finishing polio eradication, then starting up this malaria eradication, and getting that done as fast as we can.

The year I was born, 1955, the first big disease-eradication program in the world was declared for malaria. After about a decade of work, they realized that, at least in the tropical areas, they did not have the tools to get it done.

Whether I'm at the office, at home, or on the road, I always have a stack of books I'm looking forward to reading.

50 years from now we won't need as much human labour to do what manual workers do, so we should be able to take that extra productivity and put it to better use.

We have two other countries, Pakistan and Afghanistan - again it's the instability that is a problem there. So over the next several years, we expect to drive the number of [polio] cases back down to zero because that is likely to be the second disease after smallpox that we completely eradicate.

We have to find a way to make the aspects of capitalism that serve wealthier people serve poorer people as well.