“I really think the most important thing I do is to protect the dignity...” — Richard Carmona Quote

“I really think the most important thing I do is to protect the dignity and the integrity of the Office of the Surgeon General.”

“Lucy Mercedes Martinez, my mother, was probably my first mentor. She really tried to take care of me in spite of myself, and in spite of her own struggles with alcohol. She was an immigrant who had never finished school. But she was also a Renaissance woman who read voraciously. She spoke several languages.”

“I still look at my job as being a doctor of the people, and I'm going to look at the science... If we can find a viable alternative that gave us harm reduction as people are withdrawing from nicotine, I'm happy to engage in that science and see if we can do that.”

“We believe in the dignity of every life, the possibility of every mind, the divinity of every soul. This is our true North.”

“There is a certain kind of sobering, civilizing effect that being president imposes on people. There is a certain kind of dignity with which you comport yourself. As an observer of the presidency, I have to wonder if Trump would follow that pattern.”

“By a lie, a man... annihilates his dignity as a man.”