Dreams are stories made by and for the dreamer, and each dreamer has his own folds to open and knots to untie.

I've often thought that one of us is what we imagine, that each of us normalizes the terrible strangeness of inner life with a variety of convenient fictions.

We lose ourselves in stories; that's the beauty of literary art.

Good books, written by men or women, are ones in which you lose consciousness of the person writing the sentences.

I think that it's important for people to read philosophy and literature is not because I think everyone should be a well-rounded human being, but because it will help you think better about what you are doing.

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.

We read each other through our eyes, and anatomically they are an extension of our brains. When we catch someone's eye, we look into a mind.