This is the reality of intensive care: at any point, we are as apt to harm as we are to heal.

Better is possible. It does not take genius. It takes diligence. It takes moral clarity. It takes ingenuity. And above all, it takes a willingness to try.

Our reluctance to honestly examine the experience of aging and dying has increased the harm we inflict on people and denied them the basic comforts they most need.

No matter what measures are taken, doctors will sometimes falter, and it isn't reasonable to ask that we achieve perfection. What is reasonable is to ask that we never cease to aim for it.

You may not control life's circumstances, but getting to be the author of your life means getting to control what you do with them.

You can't make a recipe for something as complicated as surgery. Instead, you can make a recipe for how to have a team that's prepared for the unexpected.

Arriving at an acceptance of one's mortality is a process, not an epiphany.

Courage is strength in the face of knowledge of what is to be feared or hoped. Wisdom is prudent strength.

Coaching done well may be the most effective intervention designed for human performance.

Life is choices, and they are relentless. No sooner have you made one choice than another is upon you.

I think the extreme complexity of medicine has become more than an individual clinician can handle. But not more than teams of clinicians can handle.

Respond to critics with humility. Most people are experts in finding problems with whatever others do. That should not be a surprise to you.

And you know what I realize now? That we're all waiting on something, no matter where we are in life. It's the human condition.

I don't put anything in front of taking ski racing and sports seriously.

All this creative power of the mind amounts to no more than the faculty of compounding, transposing, augmenting, or diminishing the materials afforded us the by senses and experience.

Sorrow is not a raven perched persistently above a chamber door. Sorrow is a thing with teeth, and while in time it retreats, it comes back at the whisper of it's name.

As a rule we develop a borrowed European idea forward, and ... Europe develops a borrowed American idea backwards.

Sorrow is the mere rust of the soul. Activity will cleanse and brighten it.

Except under rare circumstances, I don't write responses to criticism.

I've shot films in Africa. I've shot in America - English is not my language.

My first job at Graham-Newman was to prepare the annual report for that 10th year.