“Although often perceived as one disease, cancer is a number of diseases subsumed within one diagnostic label.”

“...humanity is a disease, a cancer on the body of the world.”

“Death is a cure to a lot of things like cancer and disease and happiness, although I'm not sure anyone would want to be cured of happiness. And some might not want to be cured from cancer if that cure means death, because then they aren't alive anymore and being alive with cancer is something.”

“People say, "I have heart disease," not "I am heart disease." Somehow the presumption of a person's individuality is not compromised by those diagnostic labels. All the labels tell us is that the person has a specific challenge with which he or she struggles in a highly diverse life. But call someone "a schizophrenic" or "a borderline" and the shorthand has a way of closing the chapter on the person. It reduces a multifaceted human being to a diagnosis and lulls us into a false sense that those words tell us who the person is, rather than only telling us how the person suffers.”

“The earth has a skin and that skin has diseases; one of its diseases is called man.”

“Don't tell me you're one of those people who becomes their disease. I know so many people like that disheartening. Like, cancer is in the growth business, right?”