“And pray, why would this number interest us?” “It is the only number that describes itself when you read it, ‘One zero, two ones, three twos, two threes’.”

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.

…guilt leads to righteous action, but rarely is it the right action.

Students undergo a conversion in the third year of medical school – not pre-clinical to clinical, but pre-cynical to cynical.

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

She died chasing greatness and never saw it each time it was in her hand, so she kept seeking it elsewhere, but never understood the work required to get it or to keep it.

Certainly we do not need quantum mechanics for macroscopic objects, which are well described by classical physics.

The development of quantum mechanics early in the twentieth century obliged physicists to change radically the concepts they used to describe the world.

Grey is not an attractive colour, but perhaps it is the one that describes the world most accurately.

You know, I think there are certain words like ‘illegitimate’ that should not be used to describe a person.

People often need to describe things quickly and so they use a shorthand. The problem is that after they use a label, they begin to think only in terms of the label instead of the totality of the experience a novel provides.

It’s easier to describe that shame, that horrible feeling of not being able to control your own life.

I said, ‘Well hopefully you could just call me Aimee. But if you have to describe it, I’m a bilateral below-the-knee amputee.’

Truthfully, the only real and consistent disability I’ve had to confront is the world ever thinking that I could be described by those definitions.