“My father, for whose skills as a surgeon I have the deepest respect, says, "The operation with the best outcome is the one you decide not to do." Knowing when not to operate, knowing when I am in over my head, knowing when to call for the assistance of a surgeon of my father's caliber--that kind of talent, that kind of "brilliance," goes unheralded.”

“I left a pause. ‘You sound like a certain kind of surgeon. A lot more interested in the operation than the patient.’ ‘I should not like to be in the hands of a surgeon who did not take that view.”

“This is what I know. I look like my father. My father disappeared when he was seventeen years old. Hannah once told me that there is something unnatural about being older than your father ever got to be. When you can say that at the age of seventeen, it's a different kind of devastating.”

“I’d never trust a surgeon who didn’t wear gloves when he operated. Even if those gloves he didn’t wear were boxing gloves. He might as well, because I know he’s going to beat me up over the price.”

“Now I know my father was a certified man of God, but at a fairly young age, I decided that when it came to my destiny, he did not know what he was talking about.”

“No, not like this, when I have not seen you without your skin on, when I know nothing, when I am not safe. Not you, whose name all my nightmares know.”