It is hard to look at the tumor and not come away with the feeling that one has encountered a powerful monster in its infancy

If you happen to hold that human consciousness is no more than the epiphenomenon, or secretion, of our individual brains then you are more or less trapped in your own skull. But if consciousness is open, if it can partake in a more global form of being, if it can merge with the natural world and with other beings, then, indeed, it may be possible to drop, for a time, the constraints of one's personal worldview and see reality through the eyes of others.

And perhaps there is none, no morrow anymore, for one who has waited so long for it in vain. And perhaps he has come to that stage of his instant when to live is to wander the last of the living in the depths of an instant without bounds, where the light never changes and the wrecks all look alike. Bluer scarcely than white of egg the eyes stare into the space before them, namely the fullness of the great deep and unchanging calm. But at long intervals they close, with the gentle suddenness of flesh that tightens, often without anger, and closes on itself.

Empathy was written from many male and female points of view because each character reacts differently to the emotional fallout from one binding circumstance

Just like your body and lifestyle can be healthy or unhealthy, the same is true with your beliefs. Your beliefs can be your medicine or your poison.

If it is possible to die of grief then why on earth can't someone be healed by happiness?