"People often ask if it was calling. My answer always is yes."
- Paul Kalanithi
"Putting lifestyle first is how you find a job-- not a calling."
"Often I return to the grave after leaving flowers – tulips, lilies, carnations – to find the heads eaten by deer. It’s just as good a use for the flowers as any, and one Paul would have liked. The ear..."
"[H]e found poetry more comforting than Scripture—and his ability to forge from his life a cogent, powerful tale of living with death."
"Will having a newborn distract from the time we have together?' she asked. 'Don't you think saying goodbye to your child will make your death more pain¬ful?''Wouldn't it be great if it did?' I said. L..."
"The pain of failure had led me to understand that technical excellence was a moral requirement."
"As a resident, my highest ideal was not saving lives -- everyone dies eventually -- but guiding a patient or family to an understanding of death or illness."
"mind was simply the operation of the brain, an idea that struck me with force; it startled my naive understanding of the world"
"Anatomy lab, in the end, becomes less a violation of the sacred and more something that interferes with happy hour, and that realization discomfits. In our rare reflective moments, we were all silentl..."
"Before operating on a patient's brain, I realized, I must first understand his mind: his identity, his values, what makes his life worth living, and what devastation makes it reasonable to let that li..."