Oliver Sacks remains my hero to this day. He was one of the first medical writers I read. The other was Lewis Thomas, who is no longer alive but is just heroic to me.

Better is possible. It does not take genius. It takes diligence. It takes moral clarity. It takes ingenuity. And above all, it takes a willingness to try.

Our reluctance to honestly examine the experience of aging and dying has increased the harm we inflict on people and denied them the basic comforts they most need.

No matter what measures are taken, doctors will sometimes falter, and it isn't reasonable to ask that we achieve perfection. What is reasonable is to ask that we never cease to aim for it.

You may not control life's circumstances, but getting to be the author of your life means getting to control what you do with them.

You can't make a recipe for something as complicated as surgery. Instead, you can make a recipe for how to have a team that's prepared for the unexpected.

Arriving at an acceptance of one's mortality is a process, not an epiphany.

Courage is strength in the face of knowledge of what is to be feared or hoped. Wisdom is prudent strength.

Coaching done well may be the most effective intervention designed for human performance.

Life is choices, and they are relentless. No sooner have you made one choice than another is upon you.

This is the reality of intensive care: at any point, we are as apt to harm as we are to heal.

When a woman says, ‘I have nothing to wear!’, what she really means is, ‘There’s nothing here for who I’m supposed to be today.

Some of us feel the need to experience life before bending to the will of an arcane society.

One minute can decide the outcome of the battle, one hour - the outcome of the campaign, and one day - the fate of the country.

A new species is arising on the planet, it is arising now and you are it.

I have been an XL fan of Devo since I was in high school in the 1970s. Their records only sound better with time.

Necessity is the mistress and guide of nature. Necessity is the theme and inventress of nature, her curb and her eternal law.

I'm just a sucker even talking to you guys. I should be ready to rip your heads off your necks. But it's just not the right thing to do

If your husband wants to lick the beaters on the mixer, shut them off before you give them to him.

Manic depressives have all the luck; they soar between crashes. The best us regular depressives can do is battle our way up to normal every now and then.

I want to aspire to something like what Denzel Washington does, which is try to find scripts written for white actors - or Jodie Foster, who reads scripts for male actors.