I grew up in a scientific world, the son of a neurosurgeon.

No one looks at your hands to see how much they shake when you are interviewed to be a surgeon. The physical skills required are no greater than for writing cursive script. If an operation requires so much skill only a few surgeons can do it, you modify the operation to make it simpler.

You don't have to be a brain surgeon to be a valuable person. You become valuable because of the knowledge that you have. And that doesn't mean you won't fail sometimes. The important thing is to keep trying.

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.

I was asked by an NPR reporter once why don't I talk about race that often. I said, 'It's because I'm a neurosurgeon.' And she thought that was a strange response... I said, 'You see, when I take someone to the operating room, I'm actually operating on the thing that makes them who they are. The skin doesn't make them who they are.'

One of the reasons surgeons have so much trouble separating Siamese twins is that nobody gets to do many of them. On the table, the anatomy is so different from normal, that you're constantly trying to figure out, 'Can I cut this? Does this wire lead to what?' It's like trying to defuse a bomb.

A surgeon is surrounded by people who are sick, discouraged, afraid, embittered, dying - but also courageous, loving, wise, compassionate and alive.

I decided to become a surgeon named Bernie who writes books and gives seminars to teach people what he has learned and is still learning about how to deal with life's difficulties.

You cannot drive the car if you do not have a driver's license. You cannot do brain surgery if you are not a brain surgeon. You cannot even do a massage if you don't have a license.

I'd love to go to art school. I'd love to learn how to draw. I'd love to be fluent in Spanish. I'd like to be a brain surgeon.

The sniper is like a highly skilled surgeon, practicing his craft on the battlefield.

You can be anything. You could be the President of the United States or the inventor of the next Internet or a ninja cardio-thoracic surgeon poet, which would be awesome because you would be the first one.

I was very fortunate to grow up with parents who love to travel, so I traveled from a young age. My dad's a heart surgeon and goes to conferences all over the world. By the time I was seven, I traveled outside the country for the first time. We went to Paris. The next year, we went to London, and then Brussels.

It wasn't the 'miracle of engineering' that is the human body that was filling me with a mad desire to live my days and nights in a pair of scrubs. The hard truth was I did not remotely want to be a surgeon. I actually just wanted to be on 'Grey's Anatomy.'

I initially moved to San Francisco to become a research associate for one of the top young heart surgeons in the country. Everything that I learned in that position is that skills, talent, and expertise are transferable.

On Saturday, I was a surgeon in South Africa, very little known. On Monday, I was world renowned.

Constant attention by a good nurse may be just as important as a major operation by a surgeon.

Action game players make more correct decisions per unit time. If you are a surgeon or you are in the middle of a battlefield, that can make all the difference.

My dad, who is a heart surgeon, works with many adult patients who did not take good care of their bodies in their formative years. He is able to teach them how to break old eating and exercise habits and reshape their bodies, but not without a great deal of resistance.

The orthopaedic surgeon said that if ever I had hip or groin pain, I should rest until the pain went. However, resting is not part of a dancer's life - so I just danced through the pain.

When I was 16, I played Macbeth at school and my English teacher said, 'I think you may have acting talent. Try to get into the National Youth Theatre of Great Britain and see where you get.' I wouldn't have thought of that at all. I wanted to be a surgeon, but I wasn't a clever man.

I put in the same hours to get good at this as a surgeon who went to college. It's just a much less important job in the realm of society.

We dragged the National Health Service from the depths of degradation. I've got a United Nations heart bypass to prove it and it was done by a Syrian cardiologist, a Malaysian surgeon, a Dutch doctor and a Nigerian registrar.

Plastic surgeons are always making mountains out of molehills.

My father was this famous heart surgeon, a wonderful man... but there was something about me that drove him crazy.

In our culture, good looks are so important, and today he'd head straight for a plastic surgeon, but in Cyrano's time, the nose was who he was, and it didn't matter that he was a brilliant poet, a brilliant swordsman, a brilliant man. His nose defined him.

It's funny when people ask an actor what they want to play next, because you don't get to decide what you play. I don't know. I can only say this: I don't want to and have no interest in playing a plastic surgeon. That's for sure. I'm open to anything else.

As a neurosurgeon, I did not believe in the phenomenon of near-death experiences.

I grew up in a scientific world, the son of a neurosurgeon.

I was lucky that I started very young, since I had a very clear idea of what I wanted to do. But my father is very conservative, and he never considered fashion to be a real career but something I could pursue as a hobby. He wanted me to be a doctor, and at one point, I thought of becoming a plastic surgeon.

Growing old gracefully used to begin at about 35, but today women prefer to 'stay young gratefully' with thanks to designers, beauticians and plastic surgeons.