“Here’s something I bet you don’t know: every time someone writes a story about a dragon a real dragon dies. Something about seeing and being seen something about mirrors that old tune about how a photograph can take your whole soul. At the end of this poem I’m going to go out like electricity in an ice storm. I’ve made peace with it.”

“I’ve never once thought about how I was going to die,” she said. “I can’t think about it. I don’t even know how I’m going to live.”

“Don’t let yourself be. Find something new to try, something to change. Count how often it succeeds and how often it doesn’t. Write about it. Ask a patient or a colleague what they think about it. See if you can keep the conversation going.”

“there is something intriguing about knowing how things are going to turn out, but being constantly surprised about how they'll get there.”

“When I really worry about something, I don’t just fool around. I even have to go to the bathroom when I worry about something. Only, I don’t go. I’m too worried to go. I don’t want to interrupt my worrying to go. ”

“I realized I’d learned something about myself. I was like ‘oh man, I’ve let this go’ now I’m starting to talk about it like it’s over and it hadn’t even begun.”