Writing is revision. All prose responds to work.

And I can imagine Farmer saying he doesn't care if no one else is willing to follow their example. He's still going to make these hikes, he'd insist, because if you say that seven hours is too long to walk for two families of patients, you're saying that their lives matter less than some others', and the idea that some lives matter less is the root of all that's wrong with the world.

Public education rests precariously on the skill and virtue of the people at the bottom of the institutional pyramid.

The goofiness of radicals thinking they have to dress in Guatemalan peasant clothes. The poor don't want you to look like them. They want you to dress in a suit and go get them food and water. Comma.

I usually write about ordinary people and ordinary things, but Paul Farmer is the least ordinary person I've ever met... He's the leader of a small group of people who hope to cure a sick world, and I hope my book can help in some small way.

I tell beginning readers to read a lot and write a lot. If you want to write a book, find a subject that's really worth the time and effort you'll put in.

I'm going to a commune in Vermont and will deal with no unit of time shorter than a season.