The dignity we seek in dying is not to be found in our final weeks, days or moments but in the way we live and how we are seen by those people whose lives we affect.

To become comfortable with uncertainty is one of the primary goals in the training of a physician.

I have not often seen much dignity in the process by which we die.

For aging is an art. The years between its first intimations and the time of the ultimate letting go of all earthly things can-if the readiness and resolve are there-be the real harvest of our lives.

There is, to be sure, sometimes only a small difference between being alert to possible danger and allowing oneself to become terrified to the point of paralysis by seeming or imagined portents.

Empires fall, ids explode, great symphonies are written, and behind all of it is a single instinct that demands satisfaction.

If we cannot heal in one way, we must learn to heal in another.

The life sciences contain spiritual values which can never be explained by the materialistic attitude of present day science

Death is the surcease that comes when the exhausting battle has been lost.

Moths and flames, mankind and death--there is little difference.

In the community of living tissues, the uncontrolled mob of misfits that is cancer behaves like a gang of perpetually wilding adolescents. They are the juvenile delinquents of cellular society.

And suddenly you realize: you are in every dot of the universe vanishing and arising.

How could I want one thing so much and its exact opposite at the same time?

The first springs of great events like those of great rivers are often mean and little.

My argument is: keep the bloody bottom line at the bottom. That's where it should be.

I never want to be satisfied. I never want to be like, 'OK, this is good enough.' I always want to get to the next level and help the team improve.

Zen was an attempt to get back to the purest teachings of the Buddha -enlightenment without strings.

If you never have a go, you never, never know.

Great leaders are never too proud to learn.

One may as well be optimistic. The road to catastrophe will be rougher if it's paved with dread.