Vivek Murthy

“You can be surrounded by many people but still feel quite lonely if you don't have strong connections and if you feel you can't be yourself with them. Conversely, you can just be around a few people, but feel deeply connected to them.”

“Emotional well-being is more than the absence of a mental illness. It's that resource within each of us which allows us to reach ever closer to our full potential, and which also enables us to be resilient in the face of adversity.”

“Service is a powerful pathway of getting out of loneliness. It takes the focus off of you and puts it onto someone else.”

“When I went through my confirmation hearing to serve as surgeon general they asked me what my priorities would be and I didn't list loneliness in that priority list because it was not one at the time.”

“Many people feel that if they're lonely, that means that they're not likable or that they're broken in some way.”

“When I was younger, my family suddenly and unexpectedly lost all of our life savings to a man we had trusted as a friend. The financial loss was difficult, especially because my sister and I were both in college. But the breach of trust was even more painful.”

“While loneliness has the potential to kill, connection has even more potential to heal.”

“With any sort of major change we need to make in our lives, it's much easier to do it with other people. We succeed and thrive best when we work together and support each other. When we struggle alone, that's when the struggle can seem impossible.”

“If you've ever had the experience of being in conversation with someone when they were fully present, listening deeply to you when you're sharing with them, you know that five minutes of a fully present conversation like that can be more powerful than 30 minutes of distracted conversation.”

“While there are relatively few extreme introverts or extroverts, most of us lean in one direction or the other. If we lean more toward introversion, we'll generally prefer less social activity than more extroverted people. One inclination is not 'better' than another, but our culture can make it seem as if extroverts have a social advantage.”

“It is true that there are some parents who have concerns about vaccines, but while we hear about these concerns a lot in the media, I don't want people to think that the majority of parents out there do not believe in vaccines and then most kids aren't getting vaccinated. In fact, it's exactly the opposite.”

“For far too many people, the stigma around addiction prevents them from stepping forward for help.”

“Gun violence is a problem that this country should be addressing.”

“One of the things that happens in our regular lives is that when we're in moments of pain or feeling alone, we may hesitate to reach out to others because we may think - they're not going through the same experiences I am.”

“Whenever you have large numbers of people who are dying for preventable reasons, that constitutes a public health issue.”

“Despite growing up in very poor circumstances, my father had big dreams.”

“I think that if we want to create a healthier country, we need to empower more people to make changes in their lives. But we also have to empower them to help change their environment.”

“We can work on sharpening our prescribing practices, working with clinicians to ensure we're treating pain safely and effectively.”

“In fact, people with mental illness are more likely to be the victims of violence rather than anything else. So it's important that we not stereotype folks with mental illness.”

“The amount of sleep you get has an impact, not just on how you feel the next day, but it has an impact on your long-term health as well.”