All basic scientists who look to the NCI for funding should know that I will tolerate no retreat on the study of model systems and the pursuit of fundamental biological principles.

Our biggest single theme is trying to make the NIH work better with the same amount of money.

I had learned of Gertrude Steins bon mot that medicine opened all doors. This prompted me, in different moods, to view my future life as literary psychiatrist, globe-trotting tropical disease specialist, or academic internist.

Science can improve lives in ways that are elegant in design and moving in practice.

Anyone graduating from medical school in 1966 had first to fulfill military service before launching a career. Fiercely opposed to the Vietnam War, I sought to avoid it through an assignment to the Public Health Service.

A cancer is not simply a lung cancer. It doesn't simply have a certain kind of appearance under the microscope or a certain behavior, but it also has a set of changes in the genes or in the molecules that modify gene behavior that allows us to categorize cancers in ways that is very useful in thinking about new ways to control cancer by prevention and treatment.

My ideal summer day was reading on the porch.