among a coward's weapons, cynicism is the nastiest of all

...Attempts at imitation would put the emphasis where it didn't belong. The goal was to improve the lives of others, not oneself.

I know that to write you have to have stories you want to tell. You have to keep your mind alive, and you have to work hard.

My big struggle is how people can not care, erase, not remember.

Paul Farmer has helped to build amazing health care system in one of the poorest areas of Haiti. He founded Partners in Health, which serves the destitute and the sick in many parts of the world from Haiti to Boston and from Russia to Peru.

The hardest thing was learning to write. I was 13, and the only writing I had done was for Social Studies. It consisted of copying passages right out of the encyclopedia

I wrote a novel about the combat experiences I didn't have in Vietnam.