Mehmet Öz

"Most allopathic doctors think practitioners of alternative medicine are all quacks. They're not. Often they're sharp people who think differently about disease."

"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."

"I understand that people in Turkey get angry with White House’s decisions and anti-Americanism has increased; but I think at least for a couple of years Turkey should tolerate the US’s behavior; because even today the majority in America thinks that Islam is a kind of a religion like it is lived in Afghanistan, Iran or Saudi Arabia. However, the Islam there is not the same as hearing from my uncle what the prophet did or going to the [sic] saying prayers or learning about the teachings of religion. I think this is why the Americans have moved rather towards a more fundamentalist attitude. The Americans will find the way to the center from the edges eventually. America is a nation that has helped the world in the last 100 years; of course they made some mistakes, like other countries did; but they like the Turks and support them."

"Teddy Roosevelt to me was the ideal Republican. He was someone who felt strongly about the need for individuals to make the place work better without having someone tell them how to do it. But they had an obligation to do that as well. It wasn’t a favor for the country; it was an obligation as Americans."

"There was a kid in front of me who was 10. My dad, just to pass the time, said, ‘What do you want to be when you grow up?’ The kid said, ‘I don’t know, I’m 10.’ My father waited until he was out of earshot and said: ‘I never want you to tell me that if I ask you that question. I never want you tell me you don’t know. It’s O.K. if you change your mind. But I never want you not to have a vision of what you want to be.' I told him that day that I wanted to be a doctor. And I never changed my mind."

"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."

"The reality is that our brains are completely dependent on the nutrients we put in our body. I would never trust someone to make those food decisions for me. I'd always carry my food in my pocket. That's why I advocate nuts, which you can put in your pocket, no one will know it. If you soak your nuts it's even better because they get moisture and you can enjoy them, they feel like a regular meal."

"I would take us all back a thousand years, when our ancestors lived in small villages and there was always a healer in that village—and his job wasn’t to give you heart surgery or medication but to help find a safe place for conversation."

"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 would ask if somebody got a higher grade. And if George or Tom got a ninety-eight then I might as well have failed. When I made all-state football, which was a big deal for me, he didn’t ask me what it was or comment on it. He thought sports were a distraction. When his friends congratulated him at work the next day, he didn’t know what they were talking about."

"But this is one of the fundamental disconnects between Western medicine and what people often refer to as complementary medicine. Not everything adds up. It’s about making people more comfortable. I offer things like massage therapy, and offered Reiki if people wanted it. I did not recommend it, but I let people know it was their choice."

"Your genetics load the gun. Your lifestyle pulls the trigger."

"As a Turk, growing up in America with one parent from one side of the religious wall and one parent from the other side, and of course America clearly supporting the secular background, I found myself tugged more and more towards the spiritual side of the religion, rather than the legal side of the religion."

"Pennsylvania needs a conservative who will put America first, one who can reignite our divine spark, bravely fight for freedom and tell it like it is."

"It’s a good sign for the Republican Party that somebody of his standing and stature would want to run under the Republican banner."

"Look it. It's, let's face it, it it's easy to joke about Dr. Oz. I mean, some of these remedies he's pushed on TV - the raspberry ketones and the lavender soap and the palm oil for dementia. But you know what? That matters. Because if somebody who knows better, who knows better, is willing to sell snake oil just to make money, then he's gonna be willing to do anything and say anything to get elected. Even if it's not good for you. And Pennsylvania, you deserve someone that's that's honest with you. You deserve somebody who cares about you. You deserve somebody who will tell you what they really think, what they really believe. That won't be looking to see what Donald Trump tells them they should be doing or thinking because it's expedient. Somebody who's gonna work for you every day and fight for you."

"I have never been unfaithful to my husband. (I know, I know, he’s totally hot, but every other night on call gets old fast.)"

"Mehmet is a kind of modern evangelist. He is keenly intelligent and charismatic. Mehmet was always unique, but now he has morphed into a mega-brand. When he tells people the number of sexual encounters they need each year to improve their lives in a specific way, or how to lose weight in three days—this is simply lunacy. The problem is that he is eloquent and talented, and some of what he says clearly provides a service we need. But how are consumers to know what is real and what is magic? Because Mehmet offers both as if they were one."

"When he made it O.K. to talk about the shape of a good poop, I knew he could talk about anything. He always found ways to make the human body endlessly fascinating."