The battle of being mortal is the battle to maintain the integrity of one's life.

Our ideas of what our priorities are shift as we come face-to-face with some of the struggles.

Better is possible. It does not take genius. It takes diligence. It takes moral clarity. It takes ingenuity. And above all, it takes a willingness to try.

At times, in medicine, you feel you are inside a colossal and impossibly complex machine whose gears will turn for you only according to their own arbitrary rhythm. The notion that human caring, the effort to do better for people, might make a difference can seem hopelessly naive. But it isn't.

Culture matters. Of course, if physicians are rewarded or penalized for their service and results, the culture will change. But the key values we doctors are being pressed to embrace are humility, teamwork, and discipline.

Checklists turn out...to be among the basic tools of the quality and productivity revolution in aviation, engineering, construction - in virtually every field combining high risk and complexity. Checklists seem lowly and simplistic, but they help fill in for the gaps in our brains and between our brains.

Outsiders tend to be the first to recognize the inadequacies of our social institutions. But, precisely because they are outsiders, they are usually in a poor position to fix them.