The transfats found in margarine, packaged cookies, crackers and pasta increase fat in your midsection, and can actually redistribute fat from other parts of the body to the belly.

My mother was all about unconditional love, and I don't think we give that to our patients a lot. At the end of the day, what they really need you to do is to look at them in the eye and say, 'I'm here for you. I'm going to make sure this works out.'

The rule I use is, If it doesn't come out of the ground looking the way it looks when you eat it, be careful. There's no such thing as a PowerBar tree.

Not enough families eat together. We eat in front of the TV while we're absorbed in a program.

I meditate and I'm passionate about it.

As a surgeon you have to have a controlled arrogance. If it's uncontrolled, you kill people, but you have to be pretty arrogant to saw through a person's chest, take out their heart and believe you can fix it. Then, when you succeed and the patient survives, you pray, because it's only by the grace of God that you get there.

You have to be going somewhere to have the energy you need to get there.