Patients know in a heartbeat if they're getting a clumsy exam.

The only way to know where you are is by where you have just been.

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

We are all fixing what is broken. It is the task of a lifetime. We'll leave much unfinished for the next generation.

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

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.

The bottom line: health care reform is about the patient, not about the physician.