I've always felt that maybe one of the reasons that I did well as a student and made such good grades was because I lacked confidence. Lacked self-confidence, and I never felt that I was prepared to take an examination, and I had to study a little bit extra. So that sort of lack of confidence helped me, I think, to make a good record when I was a student.

I think work is a privilege. ... It keeps you alive, spiritually.

I think confidence is something you build gradually, with experience. I've always felt that maybe one of the reasons that I did well as a student and made such good grades was because I lacked confidence. I never felt that I was prepared to take an examination, and I had to study a little bit extra.

I find I'm luckier when I work harder.

I've always felt that maybe one of the reasons that I did well as a student and made such good grades was because I lacked confidence. Lacked self-confidence, and I never felt that I was prepared to take an examination, and I had to study a little bit extra. So that sort of lack of confidence helped me, I think, to make a good record when I was a student.

Of the many 'firsts' with which I have been involved at the Texas Heart Institute —including the first successful human heart transplant in the United States and the first total artificial heart transplant in the world—the achievement that may have the greatest impact on health care did not occur in the operating room or in the research laboratory. It happened on a piece of paper... when we created the first-ever packaged pricing plan for cardiovascular surgical procedures.

Get a scalpel, and practice just, say, cutting a piece of meat or something like that. You sort of learn how you want to hold your fingers, and that sort of thing, and try to become graceful when you operate.