“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.”
-When Breath Becomes Air Quotes by Paul Kalanithi
“There is a moment, a cusp, when the sum of gathered experience is worn down by the details of living. We are never so wise as when we live in this moment
-When Breath Becomes Air, Paul Kalanithi
“I can’t go on. I’ll go on.”
-When Breath Becomes Air, Paul Kalanithi
“Even if I’m dying, until I actually die, I am still living.”
-When Breath Becomes Air, Paul Kalanithi
“The defining characteristic of the organism is striving.”
-When Breath Becomes Air, Paul Kalanithi
“Life wasn’t about avoiding suffering.”
-When Breath Becomes Air, Paul Kalanith
“What makes life meaningful enough to go on living?”
-When Breath Becomes Air, Paul Kalanithi
“If the unexamined life was not worth living, was the unlived life worth examining?”
-When Breath Becomes Air, Paul Kalanithi
“Literature not only illuminated another’s experience, it provided, I believed, the richest material for moral reflection.”
-When Breath Becomes Air, Paul Kalanithi
“I will share your joy and sorrow / Till we’ve seen this journey through.”
-When Breath Becomes Air quotes by Paul Kalanithi
“When there is no place for the scalpel, words are the surgeon’s only tool.”
-When Breath Becomes Air, Paul Kalanithi
“Any major illness transforms a patient’s—really, an entire family’s—life.”
-When Breath Becomes Air, Paul Kalanithi
“Be ready. Be seated. See what courage sounds like. See how brave it is to reveal yourself in this way. But above all, see what it is to still live, to profoundly influence the lives of others after you are gone, by your words.”
-When Breath Becomes Air, Paul Kalanithi
“Words have a longevity I do not.”
-When Breath Becomes Air, Paul Kalanithi
“Putting lifestyle first is how you find a job — not a calling.”
-When Breath Becomes Air, Paul Kalanithi
“Moral duty has weight, things that have weight have gravity.”
-When Breath Becomes Air, Paul Kalanithi
“Suffering can make us callous to the obvious suffering of another.”
-When Breath Becomes Air, Paul Kalanithi
“Doctors, it turns out, need hope, too.”
-When Breath Becomes Air, Paul Kalanithi
“What happened to Paul was tragic, but he was not a tragedy.”
-When Breath Becomes Air, Paul Kalanithi
“Death may be a one-time event, but living with terminal illness is a process.”
-When Breath Becomes Air quotes by Paul Kalanithi