A book also pushed me to become a medical doctor. I was deeply inspired by Torao Tokuda, a physician who founded a hospital group in the 1970s that tried to revolutionize the Japanese medical care system.

In Ge Hong's A Handbook of Prescriptions for Emergencies (肘后备急方), I noticed one sentence "A handful of Qinghao immersed in two liters of water, wring out the juice and drink it all" (青蒿一握, 以水二升渍, 绞取汁, 尽服之) when Qinghao was mentioned for alleviating malaria fevers. Most herbs were typically boiled in water and made into a decoction before taken by the patients. This unique way of using Qinghao gave me the idea that heating during extraction might have destroyed the active components and the high temperature might need to be avoided in order to preserve the herb's activity.

When I was 16 years old, I read the book from Hans Selye. Hans Selye is a Canadian scientist, but he was Hungarian so his book was translated to Hungarian. His mantra was that you have to focus on things that you can change. Many young ones are giving up because they can see that their friends or their colleagues are advancing, and it seems that they do less and somehow, they get higher salary and promoted. I told that if you notice that then you already took away your attention what you can change. Because you cannot change that.

I think that is the most important lesson you learn in life, that you have to be ready to make a compromise. You do not compromise your principles, but you have to be ready to compromise. You have to understand that you cannot get your way 100 percent. Life is too complicated. You are not an island, and you work in a social setting, and you need to understand that you work always — at the family level, at the society level — to work out the compromise that is perceived to be fair. You don’t get 100 percent of what you want, but at least you will get the basic minimum that you require.

My father was a lawyer. My mother was a homemaker. My father was president of the Egyptian Bar Association. He was involved very much during the Nasser era — which was one of the most repressive eras in Egyptian history — in fighting for democracy, fighting for human rights, and I think that to a lot of extent shaped my view as to what I wanted to do in the future. I wanted to have a world where people are free to express their views, to have freedom of worship, to have freedom from want, and I saw poverty in Egypt when I grew up. To me, freedom, in the larger sense — to be able to speak, to worship, free from want, free from fear — I think it was a key as to what I thought I would like to do when I grow up.

For them, home is the world. For them, every human being is just one member of that large human family you have. ... if we have more children like mine, in my view, we will not have war.

I think it’s more modeling. I never bring in my children and say, “Listen, these are the values you should follow in life.” I think it’s a modeling by my wife and me. I think we give them a good life. They saw how we go through life: a difficult time, a hard time, good time. I am very happy. I think they are good kids. If I have hope, it’s because I look at my children.

No. Unfortunately, it hasn’t worked out quite that way. At that time, everybody was euphoric that we will have a new world order, you know, a world order that does not rely on nuclear weapons, nuclear deterrence. Unfortunately, it didn’t work that way. ... We still have thousands of warheads in existence. We still have more than 20 — 30 countries relying on nuclear deterrence for their own survival.

In all this we can only move forward, if we work in a multilateral setting; and that also is another dimension of this – that is recognises the importance of multilateralism. As the citation says, “broadest international co-operation”. We can only win together or lose together, Marika. I think that’s something I have been saying for quite a while and you probably will hear me say more of that, as we go forward.