We yearn for frictionless, technological solutions. But people talking to people is still the way norms and standards change.

This was not guilt: guilt is what you feel when you have done something wrong. What I felt was shame: I was what was wrong.

I chose surgery because I thought that perhaps this would make me more like the kind of person I wanted to be.

Writing lets you step back and think through a problem. Even the angriest rant forces the writer to achieve a degree of thoughtfulness.

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

You know, 97 percent of the time, if you come into a hospital, everything goes well. But three percent of the time, we have major complications.

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.