The fact that the patients were complex human beings with a rich life beyond the hospital never really sank into the consciousness of the residents. Because they had no rich lives beyond the hospital, they assumed no one else did, either. In the end, what they lacked was not medical knowledge but ordinary life experience.

Often I feel I go to some distant region of the world to be reminded of who I really am.

Keep working. Don't wait for inspiration. Work inspires inspiration. Keep working.

All major changes are like death. You can't see to the other side until you are there.

I eventually realized that direct experience is the most valuable experience I can have. Western man is so surrounded by ideas, so bombarded with opinions, concepts, and information structures of all sorts, that it becomes difficult to experience anything without the intervening filter of these structures.

At the edge of chaos, unexpected outcomes occur. The risk to survival is severe.

To apply general tools to specific problems is to fail.