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.

Following graduation from Amherst, a Woodrow Wilson Fellowship enabled me to test the depth of my interest in literary scholarship by beginning graduate studies at Harvard University.

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.

There are three great themes in science in the twentieth century : the atom, the computer, and the gene.

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.

In general, all cancers have been traditionally characterized by the way they appear under the microscope and the organs in which they arise.

I keep encouraging the pharmaceutical companies to put more money into R&D.