Arthur W. Frank

“At home there were cards and calls from friends and family. I heard from people I had not seen in years and was surprised they even knew I had cancer. These messages in particular gave me what I think ill people need most, a sense that many others, more than you can think of, care deeply that you live.”

“When I was very ill, I watched people out running and loved their capacity for movement, their freedom within their bodies. My hope was that they also valued what they were able to be.”

“We are free only when we no longer require health, however much we may prefer it.”

“The ill or impaired may, in the sense of fulfilling life, be far more free than healthy people.”

“Once the body has known death, it never lives the same again.”

“After I heard that I had had a heart attack, how I lived in my body changed, and my doctor should have found a way to let me know he recognized that.”

“The demand being made of me was to treat the breakdown as if fear and frustration were not a part of it, to act as if my life, the whole life, has not changed.”