“It has been my experience that each failure contains the seeds of your next success, if you are willing to learn from it.”

“Do some interesting science that is all your own, and if it is, in his words, ‘manifestly important and nearly impossible’, it will be fulfilling and maybe even a way to get rich.”

“A couple of days ago I watched Dr. Yong” — one of Mount Sinai’s full-time attending neurosurgeons — “do a fourteen-hour surgery to remove a tumor. When they got the scans back they realized they didn’t get all of it, so they went back in and operated for another eight hours. Those are my favorite surgeries.”

“In Caesar’s mind, he’s not just competing with the other all gust figures of his era- the other great humans beings who are pushing the envelope of distinction and fame and notoriety and power in the ancient Roman Republic. Julius Caesar is competing on a celestial level. He wants to be the best that ever was.”