241 Quotes by Paul Kalanithi

Everything teeters between pathos and bathos: here you are, violating society's most fundamental taboos and yet formaldehyde is a powerful appetite stimulant, so you also crave a burrito.

What patients seek is not scientific knowledge that doctors hide but existential authenticity each person must find on her own. Getting too deeply into statistics is like trying to quench a thirst with salty water. The angst of facing mortality has no remedy in probability.

Though I felt dissatisfied, at least I felt like somebody, a person, rather than a thing exemplifying the second law of thermodynamics (all order tends toward entropy, decay, etc.).

mind was simply the operation of the brain, an idea that struck me with force; it startled my naive understanding of the world

Cancer of the brain comes in two varieties: Primary which are born in the brain, & metastases, which emigrate from somewhere else in the body, most commonly from the lungs. Surgery does not cure the disease, but it does prolong life; for most people, cancer in the brain suggests death within a year maybe two. 

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 painful?""Wouldn't it be great if it did?" I said. Lucy and I both felt that life wasn't about avoiding suffering.

If human relationality formed the bedrock of meaning, it seemed to us that rearing children added another dimension to that meaning.

Any part of me that identified with being handsome was slowly being erased-though, in fairness, I was happy to be uglier and alive.

No philosopher can explain the sublime better than this, standing between day and night. It was as if this were the moment God said, “Let there be light!” You could not help but feel your specklike existence against the immensity of the mountain, the earth, the universe, and yet still feel your own two feet on the talus, reaffirming your presence amid to grandeur.