72 Quotes by Joycelyn Elders

Health is more than the absence of disease. Health is about jobs and employment, education, the environment, and all of those things that go into making us healthy.

I went to Washington, not to get that job but to do that job. I wanted to do something about the problems that I saw out there that were happening in our country. I wanted to do something to make sure that all people had access to health care. I wanted to do something to reduce teenage pregnancies and begin to address the needs of our adolescents.

Our country talked about masturbation more in December of 1994 than they ever have in the history of the country, and you know, people would think you'd be embarrassed about that. I'm not embarrassed about that.

If I could make any changes at all to the current health care system, you know I would start with education, education, education. You can't educate people that are not healthy. But you certainly can't keep them healthy if they're not educated.

We know that more than seventy to eighty percent of women masturbate, and ninety percent of men masturbate, and the rest lie.

I'm against abstinence programs because I really consider "abstinence only" child abuse.

Masturbation never got anybody pregnant, does not make anybody go crazy, and what we're about is preventing HIV in our bright young people.

The evidence is overwhelming that marijuana can relieve certain types of pain, nausea, vomiting and other symptoms caused by such illnesses as multiple sclerosis, cancer and AIDS - or by the harsh drugs sometimes used to treat them. And it can do so with remarkable safety. Indeed, marijuana is less toxic than many of the drugs that physicians prescribe every day.

You can't educate a child who isn't healthy, and you can't keep a child healthy who isn't educated.