I am an American, but a sense of otherness was part of my growing up. I spoke Norwegian before I spoke English. My mother is Norwegian.

Intellectual curiosity about one's own illness is certainly born of a desire for mastery. If I couldn't cure myself, perhaps I could at least begin to understand myself.

I am always suspicious of those who impose 'rules' on child rearing. Every child is different in terms of temperament and learning, and every parent responds to a particular child, not some generalized infant or youngster.

I have found that all of my memories seem to need a place and that a good part of what we think of as explicit memory has to do with location.

I believe that every American should have stable, dignified housing; health care; education - that the most very basic needs to sustain modern life should be guaranteed in a moral society.

Childhood obesity is best tackled at home through improved parental involvement, increased physical exercise, better diet and restraint from eating.

It is becoming clear that many diseases - especially cancer - are highly complex and may respond better to a multi-drug approach which targets many different aspects of a disease process.

When the doctor told me I had cancer, I was scared.