No blade can puncture the human heart like the well-chosen words of a spiteful son.

In writing, as in medicine, there are no short cuts. You need stamina.

If 'ecstasy' meant the sudden intrusion of the sacred into the ordinary, then it had just happened to me.

The most important innovation in medicine to come in the next 10 years: the power of the human hand.

For one who has an interest in the body as text, airports are treasure troves of information. It seems almost un-American to enjoy delays, and perhaps enjoy is not the best word, but certainly a delayed flight, if it does nothing else, allows one the opportunity to make prolonged observations about one's fellow travelers.

She felt the familiar calmness of an emergency, but she understood the falseness of that feeling, now that it was her life at stake.

I still find the best way to understand a hospitalized patient is not by staring at the computer screen but by going to see the patient; it's only at the bedside that I can figure out what is important.