The belief in the probability of death with dignity is our, and society’s, attempt to deal with the reality of what is all too frequently a series of destructive events that involve by their very nature the disintegration of the dying person’s humanity. I have not often seen much dignity in the process by which we die.

To become comfortable with uncertainty is one of the primary goals in the training of a physician.

Empires fall, ids explode, great symphonies are written, and behind all of it is a single instinct that demands satisfaction.

If we cannot heal in one way, we must learn to heal in another.

A realistic expectation also demands our acceptance that one's allotted time on earth must be limited to an allowance consistent with the continuity of our species... We die so that the world may continue to live. We have been given the miracle of life because trillions and trillions of living things have prepared the way for us and then have died-in a sense, for us. We die, in turn, so that others may live. The tragedy of a single individual becomes, in the balance of natural things, the triumph of ongoing life.

Nosology (from the Greek nosos, meaning disease, and logos, referring to study) is not a sport for the timid, and certainly not for those so scrupulous about rules and order that they demand consistency in all things.

There is, to be sure, sometimes only a small difference between being alert to possible danger and allowing oneself to become terrified to the point of paralysis by seeming or imagined portents.