He had said, "I am a man," and that meant certain things to Juana. It meant that he was half insane and half god. It meant that Kino would drive his strength against a mountain and plunge his strength against the sea. Juana, in her woman's soul, knew that the mountain would stand while the man broke himself; that the sea would surge while the man drowned in it. And yet it was this thing that made him a man, half insane and half god, and Juana had need of a man; she could not live without a man.

If you understand each other you will be kind to each other.

There is one thing pleasantly unconfusing about medicine. The direction and the end are fixed and the patient never works backward.

I wonder why progress looks so much like destruction.

People need responsibility. They resist assuming it, but they cannot get along without it.

He learned that when people are very poor they still have something to give and the impulse to give it.

He never fell, never slipped back, never flew.