I love to read poetry but I haven't written anything that I'm willing to show anybody.

He had so many ways of climbing into the tree house in his head, escaping the madness below, and pulling the ladder up behind him.

Being the first born gives you great patience.

He was teaching me how to die, just as he'd taught me how to live.

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.

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. 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.

My sense is that the wonderful technology that we have to visualize the inside of the body often leaves physicians feeling that the exam is a waste of time and so they may shortchange the ritual.