I joke, but I only half joke, that if you come to one of our hospitals missing a limb, no one will believe you till they get a CAT scan, MRI, or orthopedic consult.

Wasn't that the definition of home? Not where you are from, but where you are wanted

A rich man's faults are covered with money, but a surgeon's faults are covered with earth.

When I wake to the gift of yet another sunrise my first thought is to rouse him and say, I owe you the sight of morning.

Tell us please, what treatment in an emergency is administered by ear?"....I met his gaze and I did not blink. "Words of comfort," I said to my father.

Though I am fascinated by knowledge, I am even more fascinated by wisdom.

The most important innovation in medicine to come in the next 10 years: the power of the human hand.

No blade can puncture the human heart like the well-chosen words of a spiteful son.

Students undergo a conversion in the third year of medical school - not pre-clinical to clinical, but pre-cynical to cynical.

We know the average American physician interrupts their patient in 14 seconds.

You live it forward, but understand it backward.

When you're dealing with frauds and liars, listen more to what they don't say than what they do.

What goes on in abstract art is the proclaiming of aesthetic principles... It is in our own time that we have become aware of pure aesthetic considerations. Art never can be imitation.

A fish does not campaign against fisheries-it only tries to slip through the mesh.

I like the idea of being a youngish parent. So I've got energy to play football even though they'll be better than me by the time they're four.

For a much lauded writer, I'm not terribly self-absorbed. In social situations, which are difficult for me - I mean, this is an interview - I'm normally uncomfortable talking about myself.

I started to write an apology, but I don't have anything to say I'm sorry for.

Affection may be abiding and love may be abiding, but the state of being in love is transitory.

Tunes have notes and tempos and rules. If the tune is "All the Things You Are," you have to adhere to its structure and to the tradition behind that structure.

To be fully alive, fully human, and completely awake is to be continually thrown out of the nest.

I almost never make stuff out of cookbooks because they're either too complicated or there's an ingredient in there that I can't find.