“You are not a mere spectator at a contest between cancer cells and killer drugs. Your attitude is important. Your will to get healthy. People give up; sometimes it seems easier to die than hang in there, go the distance... You've got to be your own hero. People need to find things inside themselves they never knew were there.”

“It's very hard to keep your spirits up. You've got to keep selling yourself a bill of goods, and some people are better at lying to themselves than others. If you face reality too much, it kills you.... you've got to find an answer to the question: Why go on?”

“Watch it...people who keep things inside them develop all sorts of disease...all that emotional gunk's got to find an outlet. Angry people develop cysts; stubborn people get arthritis; resentful people die of cancer.”

“If letting go, if letting people and things work themselves out in the way that they needed to without your help was the most important thing, then it was also the hardest.”

“You didn't need a college degree to become one of the people who knew what was really going on. If you paid attention, you could pick things up on your own.”

“people were just out of control! . . . They've all got cell phones stuck to their ears and yet I've never seen such distance between people trying so hard to be close.”