There are few things as toxic as a bad metaphor. You can't think without metaphors.

The caretaking has to be done. "Somebody's got to be the mommy." Individually, we underestimate this need, and as a society we make inadequate provision for it. Women take up the slack, making the need invisible as we step in to fill it.

Rarely is it possible to study all of the instructions to a game before beginning to play, or to memorize the manual before turning on the computer. The excitement of improvisation lies not only in the risk of being involved but in the new ideas, as heady as the adrenaline of performance, that seems to come from nowhere.

Human beings do not eat nutrients, they eat food.

Of any stopping place in life, it is good to ask whether it will be a good place from which to go on as well as a good place to remain.

Every loss recapitulates earlier losses, but every affirmation of identity echoes earlier moments of clarity.

A suprising number of physicians manage to continue to care about persons even after the rigors of medical training.