“Brain surgeons are dealing with the very last thread of life, and they have to be very confident, but I think they tend to remember their failures rather than their successes, and that must be very...”

“In my life, I have made the occasional catastrophic choice, and it's just a case of moving on and learning from it.”

“When you see a tumour in the brain, it's an ugly looking thing. It's kind of black, grisly and messy. Or it can be white. To see it taken away is just amazing.”

“People love watching medical dramas - they also love watching documentaries about the workings of the brain.”

“Perhaps our imagination needs crime stories to fulfill some craving we have, as a way to assuage a darkness in ourselves.”

“I spend my money on holidays and eating out, and it allows me to be generous.”

“I was ashamed of myself for being ashamed of myself. I didn't like feeling like that.”

“I felt like a failure, like somehow my self-worth was tied to my ability to procreate. I didn't feel like I could talk about it. I did not want other people's pity, so I mostly kept my story and my...”

“My failures may be my greatest successes. It is in failure that I have often drawn closer to God, learn to depend more on Him than myself, gained self-knowledge, and seen things in their right pers...”

“When man will return to nature, nature will return to him.”

“The sky is an enormous man.”

“When the full-grown poet came,Out spake pleased Nature (the round impassive globe, with all its shows of day and night,) saying, He is mine;But out spake too the Soul of man, proud, jealous and unr...”

“Anna thought about the men outside on the gallery. She was glad they were there; finding them smoking and talking quietly had been comforting, it was what men did in the evenings when the work was ...”

“Her arms groped forward to guide her when her tears blocked her vision in darkness. Then she couldn't run any more. She sank to her knees and began to cry in her terror. She wanted Gary.She suddenl...”

“Now stir the fire, and close the shutters fast,Let fall the curtains, wheel the sofa round,And, while the bubbling and loud hissing urnThrows up a steamy column and the cupsThat cheer but not inebr...”