Fatima Afridi

“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, When Breath Becomes Air

“What happened to Paul was tragic, but he was not a tragedy.”
― Paul Kalanithi, When Breath Becomes Air

“Sometimes the news so shocks the mind that the brain suffers an electrical short. This phenomenon is known as a “psychogenic” syndrome, a severe version of the swoon some experience after hearing bad news.”
― Paul Kalanithi, When Breath Becomes Air

“When there is no place for the scalpel, words are the surgeon’s only tool.”
― Paul Kalanithi, When Breath Becomes Air