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.

brains give rise to our ability to form relationships and make life meaningful. Sometimes, they break.

There must be a way, I thought, that the language of life as experienced—of passion, of hunger, of love—bore some relationship, however convoluted, to the language of neurons, digestive tracts, and heartbeats.

Words began to feel as weightless as the breath that carried them.

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.