Quote

I got my Nobel Prize for my lab work.

In November, 1964 when I was a patient at the Mayo Clinic I though seriously about killing myself.

At my wedding, I was dancing so furiously that I fell hard on my kneecaps. The next morning, my knees were so swollen that I had to get a wheelchair at the airport to go on my honeymoon.

When I was a child, doctors sent my grandmother home in a wheelchair to die. Diagnosed with end-stage heart disease, she already had so much scar tissue from bypass operations that the surgeons had essentially run out of plumbing. There was nothing more to do, they said; her life was over at 65.

In February 1991, I was rushed to the hospital in Los Angeles to have my feet amputated. Three years earlier, I had broken the national 100 meters hurdles record while a student at UCLA and was a favourite for the event at the 1988 Seoul Olympics.

I was fortunate enough to have a situation in my life where everything did shake out and hit rock bottom, and I did see who was standing there and really saw who had my back for real.

The Nobel Peace Prize opened up a door in my heart.

After that I couldn't show my face outside. I lost my identity and balance. I was still living with my parents, and they were my only friends. For so many people, this thing with the nurse was confirmation that I must be mad or mentally ill.

I was a very sickly boy when I was young; nearly died when I was 7. I had a life-threatening attack of meningitis, and that put me in a coma for a few months. It took me four years to get my memory back.