Hope gives us the courage to confront our circumstances and the capacity to surmount them.

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

The freedom of patient speech is necessary if the doctor is to get clues about the medical enigma before him. If the patient is inhibited, or cut off prematurely, or constrained into one path of discussion, then the doctor may not be told something vital. Observers have noted that, on average, physicians interrupt patients within eighteen seconds of when they begin telling their story.

To hope under the most extreme circumstances is an act of defiance that permits a person to live his life on his own terms. It is part of the human spirit to endure and give a miracle a chance to happen.

There is an authentic biology of hope. Belief and expectation - the key elements of hope - can block pain by releasing the brain's endorphins and enkephalins, mimicking the effects of morphine.

Even when there is no longer hope for the body, there is always hope for the soul.

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