Will having a newborn distract from the time we have together?" she asked. "Don't you think saying goodbye to your child will make your death more painful?"

"Wouldn't it be great if it did?" I said. Lucy and I both felt that life wasn't about avoiding suffering.

Paul Kalanithi

Paul Kalanithi

death family life-philosophy mortality

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The physician's duty is not to stave off death or return patients to their old lives, but to take into our arms a patient and family whose lives have disintegrated and work until they can stand back up and face - and make sense of - their own existence.

— Paul Kalanithi

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What patients seek is not scientific knowledge that doctors hide, but existential authenticity each person must find on her own... the angst of facing mortality has no remedy in probability.

— Paul Kalanithi

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You walk around feeling like a teenager and immortal your whole life, and suddenly there isn't much time left.

— Stieg Larsson

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...is not all philosophy but preparation for a serene dying?

Time for me is now double-edged: every day brings me further from the low of my last relapse but closer to the next recurrence - and, eventually, death. Perhaps later than I think, but certainly sooner than I desire.

— Paul Kalanithi

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