Human knowledge is never contained in just one person.

— Paul Kalanithi

Human knowledge is never contained in one person. It grows from the relationships we create between each other and the world, and still, it is never complete.

— Paul Kalanithi

Humans are organisms, subject to physical laws, including alas, the one that says entropy always increases. Diseases are molecules misbehaving; the basic requirement of life is metabolism, and death its cessation.

— Paul Kalanithi

I was searching for a vocabulary with which to make sense of death, to find a way to begin defining myself and inching forward again. The privilege of direct experience had led me away from literary and academic work, yet now I felt that to understand my own experiences, I would have to translate them back into language. Hemingway described his process in similar terms: acquiring rich experiences, then retreating to cogitate and write about them. I needed words to go forward.

— Paul Kalanithi

Literature not only illuminated another's experience, it provided, I believed, the richest material for moral reflection

— Paul Kalanithi

Mind was simply the operation of the brain, an idea that struck me with force; it startled my naive understanding of the world

— Paul Kalanithi

Often I return to the grave after leaving flowers – tulips, lilies, carnations – to find the heads eaten by deer. It’s just as good a use for the flowers as any, and one Paul would have liked. The earth is quickly turned over by worms, the processes of nature marching on, reminding me of what Paul saw and what I now carry deep in my bones, too: the inextricability of life and death, and the ability to cope, to find meaning despite this, because of this. What happened to Paul was tragic, but he was not a tragedy.

— Paul Kalanithi

People often ask if it was calling. My answer is always yes.

— Paul Kalanithi

People react differently to hearing 'Procedure X has a 70 percent chance of survival' and 'Procedure Y has a 30 percent chance of death.' Phrased that way, people flock to Procedure X, even though the numbers are the same.

— Paul Kalanithi

Putting lifestyle first is how you find a job-- not a calling.

— Paul Kalanithi