“I pray before I go into the operating room for every case, and I ask him to give me wisdom, to help me to know what to do – and not only for operating, but for everything.”

There is a tendency of people to try to make you believe only a few people are smart. As a brain surgeon, I know better than that.

You have the ability to choose which way you want to go. You have to believe great things are going to happen in your life. Do everything you can – prepare, pray and achieve – to make it happen.

Well, when did this become a monarchy? You know, we are the people. The president works for us and, you know, we need to remember that.

God has opened many doors of opportunity throughout my lifetime, but I believe the greatest of those doors was allowing me to be born in the United States of America.

What we need to do in this PC world is forget about unanimity of speech and unanimity of thought and we need to concentrate on being respectful of those people with whom we disagree.

Health care is one-sixth of our economy. If the government can control that, they can control just about everything. We need to understand what is going on, because there are much more economic models that can be used to give us good health care than what we have now.

You’re a slave if you let the media tell you that sports and entertainment are more important than developing your brain.

I believe that things are always going to work out, even if in the beginning it doesn’t look like they are working out. I know in the long run they are going to work out, and it’s going to be fine.

Even if you’re Bill Gates, you’ve got problems. I’m sure he would probably easily give a few billion dollars to get rid of all the problems that he has.

What we have to remember is we want to utilize the tremendous intellect that we have in the military to win wars. I’ve talked to a lot of the generals, a lot of our advanced people. And believe me, if we gave them the mission, which is what the commander-in-chief does, they would be able to carry it out.

If we can take young people who excel at the highest levels, put them on the same kind of pedestal as the all-state basketball player and the all-state football player, and begin to get the same kind of recognition, it will have a profound effect, and we are finding that it does.

So after a while, if people won’t accept your excuses, you stop looking for them.

But, you know, we have these entrenched entities – and I’m talking about both Republicans and Democrats – who believe that when you’re elected to office, you become some kind of member of the aristocracy, and that anyone who challenges you is attacking you and is unpatriotic. This is foolishness.

In general I was a good kid. It usually took a lot to make me mad. But once I reached the boiling point, I lost all rational control. Totally without thinking, when my anger was aroused, I grabbed the nearest brick, rock, or stick to bash someone. It was as if I had no conscious will in the matter.

I could easily have decided that life was cruel, that being black meant everything was stacked against me.

Let’s let everybody believe what they want to believe. And that means, P.C. police, don’t you be coming down on people who believe in God and who believe in Jesus.

How many more tragedies does it take before we do something?

We need innovation in education and dedication to the task before us.

My mother didn’t try to stab my father until I was six, but she must have shown signs of oddness before that.

I always woke up before the plane landed.

Dawn was written well before 9/11. People speak a lot today about the banality of evil, but not all evil is banal.

How many more children have to die before this country realizes that No Gun Zones create perfect locations for violence?

In the course of 25 years, we have developed a constructive relationship with Mexico that was nonexistent before.

Enjoying consciousness every now and then for a second or so before splitting up to become bits and pieces of trees and stars and french fries.