I set myself 600 words a day as a minimum output, regardless of the weather, my state of mind or if I'm sick or well. There must be 600 finished words-not almost right words.

There I was, an 18-year-old mimic rooming with a blind whistler.

I don’t think I really invented anybody. I have drawn on real life.

It was simply because, as a doctor, I don’t believe a drug should be taken for anything that is just uncomfortable or self-limiting.

There was no surer way to lose the confidence of an audience, or a jury, than by letting them think faster than yourself, so that they became aware of what you were going to say before you said it.

A surgeon gets $500 for taking out a tumor. A pathologist gets five dollars for examining it, making a diagnosis, recommending further treatment, and predicting the patient’s future.

I learned a long time ago, though – you can’t live other people’s lives. We have to make our own decisions even if we’re wrong.

In 1633,” Ainslie explained, “Galileo was condemned for heresy and held under house arrest for the last eight years of his life – all because he showed that the earth revolves around the sun. That, of course, was contrary to Catholic doctrine, which said that the earth was the center of the universe and didn’t move. Only in 1992, after what the Vatican called ‘thirteen years of study,’ did Pope John Paul II admit the Church was wrong – something science had confirmed centuries before.

But then I get to thinking of our mortality and human weakness, remembering there has never been power with purity – anywhere. If you want to be pure, you must stand alone. If you seek to do positive things, achieve something, leave the world a mite better than you found it, then you must choose power and throw some of your purity away. There’s no other choice.

As long as you could feel your heart – wherever it seemed to be – that was the important thing. Libby had an instinct for essentials; at times he had the impression that her little hands reached up and gathered stars of truth.