Considering that we live in an era of evolutionary everything---evolutionary biology, evolutionary medicine, evolutionary ecology, evolutionary psychology, evolutionary economics, evolutionary computing---it was surprising how rarely people thought in evolutionary terms. It was a human blind spot. We look at the world around us as a snapshot when it was really a movie, constantly changing.

Without question, the notion of the doctor as a legitimate fee-for-service entrepreneur, making his fortune from misfortunes of his patients, is old-fashioned, distasteful, and doomed.

I hadn't traveled with the intention of learning about anything except myself. And the real point of all this travel was not what I had come to believe or disbelieve about the wider world, but what I had learned about myself.

Nobody is driven by abstractions like 'seeking truth.

All your life, other people will try to take your accomplishments away from you. Don't you take it away from yourself.

To give up responsibility for our lives is not healthy.

It's hard to decide who's truly brilliant; it's easier to see who's driven, which in the long run may be more important.