Quotes from Harold E. Varmus

Our biggest single theme is trying to make the NIH work better with the same amount of money.

In general, all cancers have been traditionally characterized by the way they appear under the microscope and the organs in which they arise.

Anyone graduating from medical school in 1966 had first to fulfill military service before launching a career. Fiercely opposed to the Vietnam War, I sought to avoid it through an assignment to the Public Health Service.

From some dilatory reading in the early 1960s, I knew enough about viruses and their association with tumors in animals to understand that they might provide a relatively simple entry into a problem as complex as cancer.

Tobacco, UV rays, viruses, heredity, and age are the main causes of cancer.

Science can improve lives in ways that are elegant in design and moving in practice.