Hospital life--with its byzantine array of moving parts layered atop the unpredictable rhythms of illness--is a permanent state of flux.

Empathy--the ability to identify with someone else's suffering--is certainly a prerequisite for a genuine apology.

In general, empathy is easier the more we can identify with someone. When we can genuinely envision ourselves in a situation, it's possible to intuit what that person's suffering might feel like.

But I realized that not only did I need to keep tuning my skills as a doctor, I also had to figure out a way to live with the uncertainty of medicine and its attendant anxiety.

Burnout also leads to a large swath of physicians who aren't as empathetic toward their patients as they could be.

But at the most basic level, doctors need to be able to come forward with their errors and near-misses, otherwise we will never know where the problems lay.

The more expensive a school is, the more crooks it has — I'm not kidding.

You can either change yourself or allow the circumstance to change you. The choice is yours.

There is nothing truer in this world than the love of a good dog.

If your grandparents are Mexican, you can relate through the roots of the show [Top Chef], through the food, through the traditions and find yourself and get to know yourself too.

Why did you do all this for me?' he asked. 'I don't deserve it. I've never done anything for you.' 'You have been my friend,' replied Charlotte. 'That in itself is a tremendous thing.

C++ is the best example of second-system effect since OS/360.

Happiness is a matter of one's most ordinary everyday mode of consciousness being busy and lively and unconcerned with self.

We celebrate the past to awaken the future.

Now is then's only tomorrow.

The biggest mistake any of us can make is thinking that love is a feeling, an emotion. It's not that at all. It's an action.