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.

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.

You can write about anything, and if you write well enough, even the reader with no intrinsic interest in the subject will become involved.

That's when I feel most alive, he told me once on an airplane, when I'm helping people.

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

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

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