An observer can't tell if a person is silent and still because inner life has stalled or because inner life is transfixingly busy.

An observer can't tell if a person is silent and still because inner life has stalled or because inner life is transfixingly busy.

Whatever we call it - mind, character, soul - we like to think we possess something that is greater than the sum of our neurons and that animates us.

It was my misfortune-or salvation-to be at all times perfectly conscious of my misperceptions of reality.

I am not a nurse escorting six lunatics to the ice cream parlor.

Disease [is] as one of our languages. Doctors understand what disease has to say about itself. It's up to the person with the disease to understand what the disease has to say to her.

It's one of the reasons I became a writer, to be able to smoke in peace.