He who rides the sea of the Nile must have sails woven of patience.

Childhood is a disease - a sickness that you grow out of.

Language fits over experience like a straight-jacket.

My yesterdays walk with me. They keep step, they are gray faces that peer over my shoulder.

Sleep is when all the unsorted stuff comes flying out as from a dustbin upset in a high wind.

The writer probably knows what he meant when he wrote a book, but he should immediately forget what he meant when he's written it.

What a man does defiles him, not what is done by others.

Novelists do not write as birds sing, by the push of nature. It is part of the job that there should be much routine and some daily stuff on the level of carpentry.

The journey of life is like a man riding a bicycle. We know he got on the bicycle and started to move. We know that at some point he will stop and get off. We know that if he stops moving and does not get off he will fall off.

Good doctors exercise judgment. They make the call and - right or wrong - live with the consequences and learn from them. The redefined M.D. is flawed, but comfortable inside their own skin.

Show me any health professional - great and not so great - who says they don't make mistakes or haven't made one in years, and I'll show you someone who has trouble admitting the truth.

The redefined M.D. is able to access the still, small voice that says I'm about to make a mistake - or I've just made one and I need to undo it before it's too late.