I think America is really in denial about the degree to which residents, particularly foreign medical graduates, man the county hospitals of this country, and but for their services, I'm not sure how exactly we could manage.

There is a point when grief exceeds the human capacity to emote, and as a result one is strangely composed-

I was taking care of people my age who were dying. The constant feeling, hearing from them, was that life is transient and can end very quickly, so don't postpone your dreams.

We're losing a ritual. We're losing a ritual that I believe is transformative, transcendent, and is at the heart of the patient-physician relationship.

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

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.

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.