Great Britain had a much different situation than we do and did here in the United States in that they had literally thousands of infected animals with human health risks. Their infectivity in this disease happened before very much was known about it.

Like it or not in the end it's one's body. It's literally what carries you through life. There's a reason for the saying 'If you have your health you have everything ' and it's true. Old age disease - these are the great equalizers.

When the Nobel award came my way it also gave me an opportunity to do something immediate and practical about my old obsessions including literacy basic health care and gender equity aimed specifically at India and Bangladesh.

There are all kinds of things you can do to marry literacy with health.

Look I hate to sound like Pollyanna but I literally can't wait to get to work in the morning. I've got steady jobs I've got my health and I'm here in the greatest city in the world. I'd be a pig not to be grateful.

I believe economic growth should translate into the happiness and progress of all. Along with it there should be development of art and culture literature and education science and technology. We have to see how to harness the many resources of India for achieving common good and for inclusive growth.

For Mythology is the handmaid of literature and literature is one of the best allies of virtue and promoters of happiness.

Time the great destroyer of other men's happiness only enlarges the patrimony of literature to its possessor.

The sea the great unifier is man's only hope. Now as never before the old phrase has a literal meaning: we are all in the same boat.

What is wonderful about great literature is that it transforms the man who reads it towards the condition of the man who wrote.