Writing lets you step back and think through a problem. Even the angriest rant forces the writer to achieve a degree of thoughtfulness.

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.

If I had a flower for every time I thought of you...I could walk through my garden forever.

People are messy, unpredictable things.

You want to go to a place where you never lose anything and you keep gaining many things? Go to the Land Of Literature where you gain new paths, new ideas, new lives, new goals, and new souls!

The whole art of teaching is only the art of awakening the natural curiosity of the mind for the purpose of satisfying it afterwards.

We ought to flee the friendship of the wicked, and the enmity of the good.

Each one of us should lead a life stirring enough to start a movement.

I don't know why people think I'm this ad-lib dude.

Fail to prepare, prepare to fail.

Our editors, I'm afraid, have come to believe that the photograph is an end in itself. They've forgotten that the photograph is only the subsidiary, the little brother, of the word.

The only proper suit-and-tie job I've had in my life was the two years in the late 1980s when I ran a small corporate publishing company. I even had a Ford Sierra!