I was educated in line with the basic premise: work work work. You are only a valuable human being if you work. This is utterly wrong. Half working, half dancing - that is the right mixture. I myself have danced and played too little.

I say to people who care for people who are dying, if you really love that person and want to help them, be with them when their end comes close. Sit with them - you don't even have to talk. You don't have to do anything but really be there with them.

"...All events are blessings given to us to learn from and therefore we should be grateful for the opportunity to grow and evolve into our best selves."

Those who have the strength and the love to sit with a dying patient in the silence that goes beyond words will know that this moment is neither frightening nor painful, but a peaceful cessation of the functioning of the body.

If we could see that everything, even tragedy, is a gift in diguise, we would then find the best way to nourish the soul.

We have to ask ourselves whether medicine is to remain a humanitarian and respected profession or a new but depersonalized science in the service of prolonging life rather than diminishing human suffering.

For those who seek to understand it, death is a highly creative force. The highest spiritual values of life can originate from the thought and study of death.