Things I've Found True
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This is the first of a series of the collected thoughts and sayings of influential members of the Johns Hopkins community. All the following quotes were taken verbatim from a personal interview.
When I retire, I think I'll play in a piano bar.
I can't play lacrosse.
It's wonderful to be surrounded by talented people.
Sometimes I get pretty discouraged with the world and our country and some of the things we do, and then I talk to the students and I realize that they're like I was at their age, seeing mostly opportunity and seeing what can be done, not what already is.
It doesn't feel like I have any power. If you think about an organization like a university, we're an organization of minds, of intellects. We don't make widgets. Our assets walk out the door every night. While I don't wield a lot of power, what I do have is some influence.
I was trained as a cardiac surgeon and a radiologist, but I was in business, too. You're always learning. In order to avoid mistakes, you have to have wisdom, and in order to have wisdom you have to make mistakes. So we all make mistakes and hopefully we learn from them.
Once you make two million dollars, you want to make four. You try to be the richest person in the grave. You end up with a hollow life.
Universities have an obligation to provide people who serve in government.
I had no pressure as a kid to be a doctor. My father happened to be a physician, and he exerted influence on me indirectly, obviously, because I admired and respected what he did, but he never ever told me what I should do. I was fortunate. I feel sorry for students whose parents have put so much pressure on them to be a successful doctor or lawyer or engineer.
When people think of California, they think of San Francisco or LA or Hollywood. They don't really think of Stockton or Bakersfield or Fresno. It's a little bit of Iowa in the middle of California, except it's hotter and drier.
The movie American Grafitti was my high school experience. We cruised the avenue, went to the drive-in. It was a very diverse population; in fact, my junior high was a very scary experience. They had various gangs, including Hispanic knife gangs. So I learned a lot about the melting pot of America.
You grow up in California, and there's a certain freedom to explore, which is California's advantage and disadvantage, both.
I was brought up thinking there were no limits on what you could achieve or dream about doing.
I laugh today because students come to visit colleges. They visit multiple times, stay overnight. I always said that if I had ever visited MIT, I never would have applied and never would have gone. It was a foreign country. People didn't speak English in Boston, the weather wasn't like California. But it turned out to be the best decision I ever made. It challenged me in a way that I never would have been if I stayed on the West Coast.
I'd like to see more students come to Hopkins because of the humanities. The balance would be better for the school. Not everyone needs to be pre-med. I worry about the hyper-competitive nature, although it still might be that way if we only had ten pre-meds.
I think it would be great to have more politicians who are not lawyers. If you look at Congress, there are one or two physicians in all of Congress. Most of the people in Congress have a particular view of the world because everyone is a lawyer; they want to regulate through law.
Would my pick-up line be, "Hi, I'm Bill Brody"? Probably not. They wouldn't know who the hell I was. And if they knew who I was, they'd say, "Hopkins? Give me a break." No, I don't think that would work.
Fortunately, a lot of places, I'm not recognized. I'm certainly not a household name.
I worried about living in Nicholl's House, that we would lose any sense of personal life. It's a little hard to go out in the morning in your bathrobe and slippers, but other than that, it's not obtrusive at all.
I write a lot of my speeches. I gave my commencement speech last year extemporaneously. About half the time, whoever wrote the speech, I'll throw the speech away.
My wife and I were traveling in India with a car and driver. We're driving down the main highway in India, huge semi trucks and buses all around us, people on mopeds, bicycles, tractors, elephants, people walking. It was pandemonium. We're in a little minivan, no seat belts. The driver is a terrific guy, but it's very hard driving. This little girl runs in front of the car, about five years old, not looking in our direction. Our driver swerves to avoid hitting her, but ends up hitting her and the car goes into the ditch, does a 360. My wife has blood running down her face; the driver crawls out through the windshield. The little girl is lying dead on the pavement. A group of villagers see this and start to attack the driver. My life flashed in front me. I go, "Oh shit. What do I do?" Fortunately, a group of truck drivers stopped the fight and saved our lives. I had given up chocolate chip cookies for my cholesterol, but after that, I said, I give up chocolate chip cookies and instead I get killed in India. So, I decided you have to live your life the way you want to live your life. You have to do those things that are important to you. I found out later that the same thing had happened to a public health student in New Guinea, and he had been stoned to death. So that really motivated me to live my life with no regrets.
William Brody is the 13th president of the Johns Hopkins University, having served since September 1996. Previously, Dr. Brody has served as the director of the Johns Hopkins Hospital Department of Radiology, as well as holding several other academic and business positions.--Interview by Matt Hansen