Carl Hart

“The notion that scientists are dispassionate - first of all, that's wrong. Scientists are extremely passionate.”

“In the mainstream, I'm suspect because I'm black. I have dreadlocks, I have a goatee. I mean, I'm just suspect. In my classroom and at Columbia, I'm not as suspect because it's clear I know what I'm doing, but I am still suspect.”

“Sleep is probably the most important biological function. If you don't get enough sleep, you can get psychiatric illnesses and all types of different illnesses.”

“Researchers, treatment providers - we all have a stake in the drug hysteria game.”

“We need better public education and more realistic education.”

“When patients reject official advice and proved medicine, they become more susceptible to quackery.”

“I'm the only tenured black faculty in the sciences at Columbia, in the middle of Harlem.”

“It turns out that the term 'diversity' can be anything from black faculty to military veterans. Well, I am both, but have yet to be subjected to discrimination because I'm a veteran.”

“All of my childhood, we were on welfare. My mom received Aid for Families with Dependent Children - welfare. Without that, we wouldn't have had subsidized housing. Most of my childhood, we had a two-bedroom apartment, but eventually we got into the projects, where we had four bedrooms. That was great.”

“It is always a good time when I visit the 'Melissa Harris Perry Show' on MSNBC.”

“In the hood, you have a problem with somebody, you have to deal with it. The outcome is pretty immediate.”

“When I got out of the military, I finished up my education at the University of North Carolina at Wilmington, and I had some mentors who said, 'You got what it takes. You should consider going to graduate school, getting a Ph.D. in neuroscience.' I didn't think I had what it took until somebody who had a Ph.D. told me I had what it takes.”

“I grew up in the hood in Miami in a poor neighborhood.”

“Number one in high school, when I was sort of entrenched in the street life, if you will, the major thing that kept me plugged in the mainstream was athletics. I played basketball throughout high school. I also played football, but I played basketball throughout high school.”

“I am committed to the people who are sick and tired of seeing their tax dollars being used to fund unethical people and corporations.”

“I think people are curious at some level, and they want to alter their current state of being. I mean, that could be from curiosity, that could be from stress, that can be from some other sort of ailments or problem that they are experiencing or could just be from boredom, but humans have always attempted to alter their consciousness.”

“Skills that are employable or marketable, education, having a stake or meaningful role in society, not being marginalized - all of those things are very important.”

“One of the things we know about people is that people are not very courageous in general.”

“I strongly discourage any intellectuals, regardless of race, from speaking on matters for which they have limited or no expertise.”

“The strange proposition that black intellectuals - regardless of their training - are 'race experts' mainly because they are black is naive and potentially dangerous.”