Paul Kalanithi

She was upset because she had been worried about it, too. She was upset because I wasn’t talking to her about it. She was upset because I’d promised her one life, and given her another.

Her capacity to love was barely finite, and a lesson to me.

“Let no man put asunder what God has joined,” the attending said. “At least, no more than temporarily. I like to leave things the way I found them—let’s sew it back up.”

The only thing I have to tell you is: they can always hurt you more, but they can’t stop the clock.”

Did I make the right choices?”

Could it wait until tomorrow?

No.

A sigh, and Earth continued to rotate back toward the sun.

can’t ever reach perfection, but you can believe in an asymptote toward which you are ceaselessly striving.

the paradox is that scientific methodology is the product of human hands and thus cannot reach some permanent truth.

“It’s very easy to be number one: find the guy who is number one, and score one point higher than he does.”

If you had forced me to answer, I suppose I would have said a writer, but frankly, thoughts of any career at this point seemed absurd