“When we cannot cure or save a life, our patients can at least feel cared for. It should be a basic human right.”

It is the task of a lifetime. We’ll leave much unfinished for the next generation.

I think we learn from medicine everywhere that it is, at its heart, a human endeavor, requiring good science but also a limitless curiosity and interest in your fellow human being, and that the physician-patient relationship is key; all else follows from it.

Literature is a beautiful way of keeping the imagination alive, of visiting worlds you would never have time to in your day-to-day life. It keeps you abreast of a wider spectrum of human activities.

There is that lovely feeling of one reader telling another, ‘You must read this.’

If seems almost un-American to enjoy delays, and perhaps enjoy is not the best word, but certainly a delayed flight

This is my life, I thought…I have excised the cancer from my past, cut it out; I have crossed the high plains, descended into the desert, traversed oceans, and planted my feet in new soil

That’s the funny thing about America–the blessed thing. As many people as there are to hold you back, there are angels whose humanity makes up for all the others.

It’s an eerie feeling, as if my old mentor is not just in the room, but in my shoes, using me as his mouthpiece.

According to Shiva, life is in the end about fixing holes. Shiva didn’t speak in metaphors. fixing holes is precisely what he did.

Empathy can be replaced by cynicism.

I’ve had my share of angels.

I always wondered if the good people who send us bibles really think that hookworm and hunger are healed by scripture? Our patients are illiterate.

A beautiful literary collection that tells of today’s country doctor, somewhat removed from our romantic black-bag image of days gone by, but still fulfilling an essential need in caring for spread-out populations.

There are moments as a teacher when I’m conscious that I’m trotting out the same exact phrase my professor used with me years ago.

To be around someone whose self-confidence is more than what our first glance led us to expect is seductive.

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.

A basic law: the more you practice the art of thankfulness, the more you have to be thankful for.

Do not doubt your own basic goodness. In spite of all confusion and fear, you are born with a heart that knows what is just, loving, and beautiful.

I don’t panic. The same thing applies to me as to everybody else, so I’m given to euphoria and despair. And I would say that I basically have survived by recognizing my mistakes.

If you get into the mental habit of relating what you’re reading to the basic structure of the underlying ideas being demonstrated, you gradually accumulate some wisdom.

Move only when you have an advantage. It’s very basic. You have to understand the odds and have the discipline to bet only when the odds are in your favor.

Gifts are meant to be wrapped. Honestly, it’s basic etiquette.

I’m only rich because I know when I’m wrong…I basically have survived by recognizing my mistakes.

If you’re worried about putting food on the table or putting a roof over your head, that stress is definitely will contribute to unhappiness, but once you have your basic needs met then incremental money.