“Health is more than the absence of disease. Health is about jobs and employment, education, the environment, and all of those things that go into making us healthy.”

“We have a multiheaded dragon in our midst that for too long has been waging a domestic war on our young, our poor, our elderly, and our underserved. The faces of this dragon sometimes manifest themselves as poverty, the source of the most pervasive health problem we have in America. Sometimes they manifest themselves as diseases such as AIDS, sometimes as violence, and sometimes of racism, sexism, and classism. For too long our “isms” have pushed our young, our poor, and our minorities to the back of the social justice bus. I think it is time for us to ask the question “Do we feel that every American should have a right to health care?” In our society, we feel that every criminal has a right to a lawyer. Shouldn’t we feel that every sick person has right to a doctor?”

“Banish the word 'struggle' from your attitude and your vocabulary. All that we do now must be done in a sacred manner and in celebration. We are the ones we have been waiting for.”

“Health and disease are the same thing—vital action intended to preserve, maintain, and protect the body. There is no more reason for treating disease than there is for treating health.”

“It turns out that for most people who have chronic diseases with deferred consequences, "improve my financial health" is a much more pervasively experienced job than "maintain my physical health.”

“The present convergence of crises––in money, energy, education, health, water, soil, climate, politics, the environment, and more––is a birth crisis, expelling us from the old world into a new.”

“No company is preferable to bad. We are more apt to catch the vices of others than virtues, as disease is far more contagious than health.”