Paul Kalanithi

“This is how 99% of people select their jobs: pay, work environment, hours. But that's the point. Putting lifestyle first is how…

— Paul Kalanithi

“Maybe I'd been cursed by a Greek god, but abdicating control seemed irresponsible, if not impossible.”

— Paul Kalanithi

“You can’t ever reach perfection, but you can believe in an asymptote toward which you are ceaselessly striving. Human knowledge is never…

— Paul Kalanithi

“What makes human life meaningful?”

— Paul Kalanithi

“Be ready. Be seated. See what courage sounds like. See how brave it is to reveal yourself in this way. But above…

— Paul Kalanithi

“In these moments, I acted not, as I most often did, as death’s enemy, but as its ambassador. I had to help…

— Paul Kalanithi

“deck is stacked, that you will lose, that your hands or judgment will slip, and yet still struggle to win for your…

— Paul Kalanithi

“The root of disaster means a star coming apart, and no image expresses better the look in a patient’s eyes when hearing…

— Paul Kalanithi

“What had not changed, though, was the heroic spirit of responsibility amid blood and failure. This struck me as the true image…

— Paul Kalanithi

“By the end of medical school, most students tended to focus on "lifestyle" specialities - those with more humane hours, higher salaries,…

— Paul Kalanithi

“In my life, had I ever made a decision harder than choosing between a French dip and a Reuben? How could I…

— Paul Kalanithi

“I had come to see language as an almost supernatural force, existing between people, bringing our brains, shielded in centimeter-thick skulls, into…

— Paul Kalanithi

“Getting too deeply into statistics is like trying to quench a thirst with salty water.”

— Paul Kalanithi

“And as I sat there, I realized that the questions intersecting life, death, and meaning, questions that all people face at some…

— Paul Kalanithi

“Human knowledge is never contained in one person.”

— Paul Kalanithi

“(...) the question of what makes human life meaningful, even in the face of death and decay.”

— Paul Kalanithi

“I still had a lot of practical medicine to learn, but would knowledge alone be enough, with life and death hanging in…

— Paul Kalanithi

“Patients, when hearing the news, mostly remain mute. (One of the early meanings of patient, after all, is “one who endures hardship…

— Paul Kalanithi

“Of course, the cadavers, in life, donated themselves freely to this fate, and the language surrounding the bodies in front of us…

— Paul Kalanithi

“(...) the question is not simply wether to live or die but what kind of life is worth living.”

— Paul Kalanithi

“Weren’t the numbers just the numbers? Had we all just given in to the “hope” that every patient was above average? It…

— Paul Kalanithi

“I needed words to go forward.”

— Paul Kalanithi

“Will having a newborn distract from the time we have together?" she asked. "Don't you think saying goodbye to your child will…

— Paul Kalanithi

“I had started in this career, in part, to pursue death: to grasp it, uncloak it, and see it eye-to-eye, unblinking.”

— Paul Kalanithi

“As a resident, my highest ideal was not saving lives—everyone dies eventually—but guiding a patient or family to an understanding of death…

— Paul Kalanithi