If the history of medicine is told through the stories of doctors, it is because their contributions stand in place of the more substantive heroism of their patients.

One swallow is a coincidence, but two swallows make summer.

Cancer was not disorganized chromosomal chaos. It was organized chromosomal chaos

I began wondering, can one really write a biography of an illness? But I found myself thinking of cancer as this character that has lived for 4,000 years, and I wanted to know what was its birth, what is its mind, its personality, its psyche?

Probably the most important reason we are seeing more cancers than before is because the population is ageing overall. And cancer is an age-related disease.

When you immerse yourself in medicine you realise that hope is not absolute. It's not that simple.

I think the cardinal rule of learning to write is learning to read first. I learned to write by learning to read.