“Few things a doctor does are more important than relieving pain. . . pain is soul destroying. No patient should have to endure intense pain unnecessarily. The quality of mercy is essential to the practice of medicine; here, of all places, it should not be strained.”

“Birthdays should come every day. Especially when you missed so many as a kid.”

“Secondhand pieces have the most soul.”

“I believe if something needs to be said, people should say it. Blunt doesn't stab as deep as being cut by a secret.”

“This was a new recognition that perfection is admirable but a trifle inhuman, and that a stumbling kind of semi-success can be much more warming. Most of all, perhaps, these exultant yells for the Mets were also yells for ourselves, and came from a wry, half-understood recognition that there is more Met than Yankee in every one of us. I knew for whom that foghorn blew; it blew for me.”

“A little chocolate a day keeps the doctor at bay”

“What? What's your issue now?' I asked, annoyed. 'Jus' wonderin' what's it like for Droopy. This place is intense and he's jus' a lil' guy, you know?'Of all the bangers in the world, I had to get Mr. Sensitive. Droopy, I assumed, was Hector Amaya's gang moniker. I wondered why they were always so unflattering. Me, I would've at least picked something like Foxy or Jet. Which, I supposed, explained in part why I wasn't gang material.”