I feel that I have to do everything better just to be judged as okay. It is something I wish I could let go of. It's something that I wish just wasn't there.

Hope differs from optimism. Hope does not arise from being told to "think positively," or from hearing an overly rosy forecast. Hope, unlike optimism, is rooted in unalloyed reality.

Hope is the elevating feeling we experience when we see - in the mind's eye - a path to a better future.

On average, physicians interrupt patients within eighteen seconds of when they begin telling their story.

Hope, true hope, has proved as important as any medication I might prescribe or any procedure I might perform.

Hope can be imagined as a domino effect, a chain reaction, each increment making the next increase more feasible... There are moments of fear and doubt that can deflate it.

I had learned that every patient has the right to hope, despite long odds, and it was my role to help nurture that hope.