“I had to help those families understand that the person they knew—the full, vital independent human—now lived only in the past and that I needed their input to understand what sort of future he or she would want: an easy… — Paul Kalanithi Copy Share Image
“operative risk, it was the best kind of tumor to have, and the best place to have it; surgery would almost certainly eliminate her… — Paul Kalanithi Copy Share Image
“If the unexamined life was not worth living, was the unlived life worth examining?” — Paul Kalanithi Copy Share Image
“Yet the paradox is that scientific methodology is the product of human hands and thus cannot reach some permanent truth. We build scientific theories… — Paul Kalanithi Copy Share Image
“...but every day felt full of life, and of the relationships that give life meaning.” — Paul Kalanithi Copy Share Image
“I struggled, while facing my own death, to rebuild my old life—or perhaps find a new one.” — Paul Kalanithi Copy Share Image
“I had come to see language as an almost supernatural force, existing between people,” — Paul Kalanithi Copy Share Image
“When a patient comes in with a fatal head bleed, that first conversation with a neurosurgeon may forever color how the family remembers the… — Paul Kalanithi Copy Share Image
“To the east, the full light of day beamed toward you; to the west, night reigned with no hint of surrender. No philosopher can… — Paul Kalanithi Copy Share Image
“I acted not, as I most often did, as death’s enemy, but as its ambassador. I had to help those families understand that the… — Paul Kalanithi Copy Share Image
“A scan showed that a benign brain tumor was pressing on her right frontal lobe. In terms of operative risk, it was the best… — Paul Kalanithi Copy Share Image
“Now more than ever, you have to be there for each other. I don’t want either of you staying up all night at the… — Paul Kalanithi Copy Share Image
“The funny thing about time in the OR, whether you race frenetically or proceed steadily, is that you have no sense of it passing.… — Paul Kalanithi Copy Share Image
“Learn to be fast now. You can learn to be good later.” In the OR, everyone’s eyes are always on the clock. For the… — Paul Kalanithi Copy Share Image
“I felt that the last thing he needed was the obligation to service a new friendship.” — Paul Kalanithi Copy Share Image
