The only question my father ever asked me was: Did anyone do better than you? If I came home, proud and excited, with a ninety-seven on an exam, he w… - Mehmet Oz

I’ve always felt that, when I looked at my tombstone, it shouldn’t say, ‘Mehmet Oz banged out 10,000 open-heart operations.’ I’ve probably done 5,000. Am I any better at it than 10,000? It’s just a different number on the tombstone.

The great thing about America is that you can hold on to whatever heritage you come from. We celebrate the different cultures, so I had the privilege, as the son of immigrant parents, to grow up American while staying deeply in touch with my Turkish roots. I have a great deal of family back in Turkey, I lived there for a period as a boy and I served in the Turkish military, which is compulsory for dual citizenship.

In the past Americans were not able to understand what Islam was. They thought it to be a religion that came from outside. After 9/11 this has changed. Now either out of fear or curiosity they are interested in learning about it. Only 20% of Americans have passports and few of them know a second language. They don’t understand the world well. When they suffered an attack like 9/11, their first reaction was anger. However, as time passed, Americans understood that they could not isolate themselves from the rest of the world and sit somewhere on their own.