Depression is when you think there's nothing to be done. Fortunately I always think there's something to be done.

I will turn human anatomy into roses and stars and sea. I will dissect the beloveds body in metaphor.

Human beings are repetitive animals. All meaning is generated through repetition.

I remember thinking how easy it is to speak in clichés, to steal a line from pulp fiction and let it fall. We can only hover around the inexpressible with our words anyway, and there is comfort in saying what we have heard before.

under our love making I felt a bleakness that couldnt be dispelled. The sadness was in both of us, and I think we pitied ourselves that night, as if we were other people looking down on the couple who lay together on the bed

Like countless first-year medical students, immersed in the symptoms of one disease after another, I am alert to the tingles and pangs, the throbs and quivers of my mortal body, each one of which is potentially a sign of the end.

Widowers marry again because it makes their lives easier. Widows often don't, because it makes their lives harder. [p. 61]