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Dying, however, is lonely, the loneliest event of life. Dying not only separates you from others but also exposes you to a second, even more frighteni...more

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I always imagined that you might write something about me. I wanted to leave an imprint on your life. I don’t want to be “just another patient”. I wan...more

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Some day soon, perhaps in forty years, there will be no one alive who has ever known me. That's when I will be truly dead - when I exist in no one's m...more

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Translation error is compounded by bias error. We distort others by forcing into them our preferred ideas and gestalts, a process Proust beautifully d...more

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That just seems to be the way we’re built.

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More than death, one fears the utter isolation that accompanies it. We try to go through life two by two, but each one of us must die alone- no one ca...more

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Upon learning that her cancer had spread to her spine, Paula prepared her thirteen year-old son for her death by writing him a letter of farewell that...more

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I explain to my patients that abused children often find it hard to disentangle themselves from their dysfunctional families, whereas children grow aw...more

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I hate it that she has so insinuated herself into the interstices of my mind that I can never root her out. And most of all, I hate that at the end of...more

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The freedom of an unscheduled afternoon brought confusion rather than joy. Julius had always been focused. When he was not seeing patients, other impo...more

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Why does the same book elicit such a range of responses? There must be something in the particular reader that leaps out to embrace the book. His life...more