"As for myself, I have found faith to be not a comfort but a provocation to a life I never seem to live up to, an eruption of joy that evaporates the instant I recognize it as such, an agony of absence that assaults me like a psychic wound."

"Thanks to remarkable patients like Grace, the calluses that had formed in response to repetitive trauma were beginning to soften and heal. I had a sense that would make me a more present and caring doctor, but I did not yet recognize the emotional toll it would take. When those floodgates open, I would soon learn, you can't close them again."