“If Sally had been in an accident or come down with some overtly physical disease, I would not hesitate to tell him about it, confident that his sympathies would flow in my direction as a matter of course. But psychosis defies empathy; few people who have not experienced it up close buy the idea of a behavioral disease. It has the ring of an excuse, a license for self-absorption on the most extreme scale. It suggests that one chooses madness and not the other way around. (86)”

“It turns out that for most people who have chronic diseases with deferred consequences, "improve my financial health" is a much more pervasively experienced job than "maintain my physical health.”

“How long's your vacation?"A year. Maybe longer."A year? What did you do? Win the lottery?"Most americans we met on the road, or at least the ones without nose rings, had a hard time fathoming the idea of a year's travel. Australians and Germans would nod in "of course" approval. Our country men would fixate on language barriers or some hideous tropical disease. They'd talk about the nightmare scenario - a Third World appendectomy and not being able to tell the doctor to use clean needles.”

“Your daughter has schizophrenia," I told the woman."Oh, my God, anything but that," she replied. "Why couldn't she have leukemia or some other disease instead?""But if she had leukemia she might die," I pointed out. "Schizophrenia is a much more treatable disease."The woman looked sadly at me, then down at the floor. She spoke softly. "I would still prefer that my daughter had leukemia.”

“He had black fingernails and drove a hearse. Everything about him cried out, 'Look at me, look at me,' and when you looked at him, he would snap, 'Who the fuck are you looking at?' If you subscribe to the idea that addiction is a disease, it is startling to see how many of these children- paranoid, anxious, bruised, tremulous, withered, in some cases psychotic - are seriously ill, slowly dying. We'd never allow such a scene if these kids had any other disease. They would be in a hospital, not on the streets.”

“That was the worst part about having cancer, sometimes: The physical evidence of disease separates you from other people.”