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

Tell us please, what treatment in an emergency is administered by ear?"....I met his gaze and I did not blink. "Words of comfort," I said to my father.

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

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

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.

The key to your happiness is to own your slippers, own who you are, own how you look, own your family, own the talents you have, and own the ones you don't. If you keep saying your slippers aren't yours, then you'll die searching, you'll die bitter, always feeling you were promised more. Not only our actions, but also our omissions, become our destiny.

Ignorance was just as dynamic as knowledge, and it grew in the same proportion.