I think my background, coming from Iran, which is a great country but is going through its share of troubles, really allows me to appreciate what we have here.

Desperation sometimes drives innovation.

I think I wanted to be a doctor. In Iran, the engineering and medical professions are worshipped. My father very much wanted me to be a doctor. I was certainly eager to please as a young man - as a kid, I should say.

One of the early lessons that I learned in leadership is that it's the leader's job to always go against the flow.

A lot of great medicines and ancient therapies are blocked by the FDA, so that's why I choose to travel and recognize the value of diverse points of view in medicine.

A woman wants to be romanced. She wants to be an essential part of a great adventure; she wants a beauty to unveil. That is what little girls play at, and those are the movies women love and the stories that they love.

Even today, when the Obama administration has liberalized travel to Cuba - and failed to reverse that liberalization when Alan Gross was imprisoned - there are limits.

No one can travel your own road for you; you must travel it for yourself. My faith in this stems from my childhood. I grew up in a family with a system of religious beliefs handed down to me.