“You know, many people have said that I’m on the edge and I’m maverick for some of the big operations that I’ve done. I’m not at all. I pray; I ask God to give me wisdom, ‘Should I do it?’, guidance in terms of how to do it, who to consult with. All those kind of things are incredibly important.”

My thoughts are that marriage is between a man and a woman.

It doesn’t matter if you come from the inner city. People who fail in life are people who find lots of excuses. It’s never too late for a person to recognize that they have potential in themselves.

I was perhaps the worst student you have ever seen. You know, I thought I was stupid, all my classmates thought I was stupid, so there was general agreement.

I serve God, and my purpose is to please Him, and if God be for you, who can be against you?

I first wanted to be a psychiatrist. I decided against that in medical school when I discovered that psychiatrists didn’t, in reality, do what they did on TV.

Our children need to see and hear about more black role models in many fields so they can make better choices.

Before this country came on the scene, for thousands of years people did things the same way. Within 200 years of the advent of this nation, men were walking on the moon, and I want us to recognize this is the kind of people that we are. We’re creative with a lot of ingenuity and a lot of energy.

We’re not planning for the future. If we continue to spend ourselves into oblivion, we are going to destroy this nation.

I don’t want my kids to grow up with no father like I did. I came to the conclusion a while ago that you can work until midnight and not be finished or you can work until 6 or 7 and not be finished. I decided I’d rather work until 6 or 7.

The key is to cut out the middleman and empower both doctor and patient with information about what things cost.

Every person is endowed with God-given abilities, and we must cultivate every ounce of talent we have in order to maintain our pinnacle position in the world.

I want the government to provide the military so we don’t get invaded by somebody and destroyed. I want the government to provide the roads so I can get from point A to B. In terms of taking care of my day to day needs, I want to do that myself. I want my community to do that.

What do lawyers learn in law school? They learn to win… What we’ve got to start thinking about is how do we solve problems.

Our strength as a nation comes in our unity. We are the United States of America, not the divided states. And those who want to divide us are trying to divide us, and we shouldn’t let them do it.

Over the years my mother’s steadfast faith in God has inspired me, particularly when I had to perform extremely difficult surgical procedures or when I found myself faced with my own medical scare.

I would like people to recognize in looking at my story that the person who has the most to do with what happens to you is you. It’s not the environment, it’s not the other people who were there trying to help you or trying to stop you. It’s what you decide to do and how much effort you put behind it.