“By visiting patients in their home, by helping them come to terms with their illness, I could heal when I could not cure.”

Pray tell us, what’s your favorite number?”… “Shiva jumped up to the board, uninvited, and wrote 10,213,223″… “

Life for the Italians was what it was, no more and no less, an interlude between meals

She had always assumed that she would have years to sort out the meaning of life…

I grew up and I found my purpose and it was to become a physician.

They realize the no money, no church service, no eulogy, no funeral procession no matter how elaborate, can remove the legacy of a mean spirit.

A discourse that begins at a book club in a living room, but then spreads. That is meaningful to me.

Being the first born gives you great patience.

Yesterday misspent can’t be recall’d Vanity makes beauty contemptible Wisdom is more valuable than riches.

No matter what ailed you, you went to see the barber surgeon who wound up cupping you, bleeding you, purging you.

I was angry with myself because I still loved her, or at least I loved that dream of our togetherness. My feelings were unreasonable, irrational, and I couldn’t change them. That hurt.

We must believe that ministering to others will heal our woundedness. And it can. but it can also deepen the wound.

If you keep saying your slippers aren’t yours, then you’ll die searching, you’ll die bitter, always feeling you were promised more.

The flip side of suicide is that it leaves a lingering question in the minds of the people who survived. Its like a cancer thats metastasized. The suicide is the cancer and the metastasis is all these people saying, Why? Why? Why?

The crookedness of the serpent is still straight enough to slide through the snake hole.

It was all I had, all I’ve ever had, the only currency, the only proof that I was alive. Memory.

For one who has an interest in the body as text, airports are treasure troves of information.

Never mistake knowledge for wisdom. One helps you make a living; the other helps you make a life.

It’s important in life if you don’t give a shit. It can help you a lot.

If you can, help others; if you cannot do that, at least do not harm them.

If you don’t plan your time, someone else will help you waste it.

There is no better way to thank God for your sight than by giving a helping hand to someone in the dark.

Our prime purpose in this life is to help others. And if you can’t help them, at least don’t hurt them.

We all want to help one another. Human beings are like that.

Anybody will do for you, but not for me. I must have somebody.