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For most of my career I've been very lucky to have avoided major injuries.

Surgery is a complicated thing to talk about, but I guess it could also be a dangerous thing to play with if you're not very secure about what you're doing.

The doctors must tell you that one of the risks of surgery is that you might die. This poor doctor was talking to an actress. It was very dramatic to me. To him, it was just a thing he had to say.

My injuries are more due to attrition than accidents. I have a couple of herniated discs in my neck, and that more than anything else - I had a flare-up last December, and I had actually made the decision to retire before that, but that just cemented the choice. I was flat on my back.

The biggest downside of my current job is that I have to wear a suit to work. Wearing uncomfortable clothes on purpose is an example of what former Princeton hockey player and Nobel Prize winner Michael Spence taught economists to call 'signaling.'

There are downsides to a lot of things. There are downsides to flying - people die every now and then. Do you want to stop all air flights? There are downsides to pharma; sometimes they're misused. Do you want to stop using pills?

Injuries are not only a physical question, which is the most important thing, of course, but also a question of your mind. If you're thinking: 'I'm not going to make it', 'I can't cope', 'it hurts', 'it's never going to get better', then it won't.

I'm pretty cautious and not very athletic, so I've only had really dumb injuries, like sprained ankles and allergic reactions. I did have to go to the hospital after slicing my finger while trying to cut a Kaiser roll in half.

I wouldn't take any of my injuries back; I feel like I'm stronger as an athlete because of all those setbacks.

Injuries aren't anything foreign to me. I am used to overcoming illness and injury; you can't complain about it. When you're standing up there on the blocks, it doesn't really matter: it's all about the next minute.