Listen to God with a broken heart. He is not only the doctor who mends it, but also the father who wipes away the tears.

Life as we find it is too hard for us ... We cannot do without palliative remedies. There are perhaps three of these means: powerful diversions of interest, which lead us to care little about our misery; substitutive gratifications, which lessen it; and intoxicating substances, which make us insensitive to it.

Can placebos cause side effects? If so, are the side effects real?

The great secret of doctors, known only to their wives, but still hidden from the public, is that most things get better by themselves; most things, in fact, are better in the morning.

Optimistic lies have such immense therapeutic value that a doctor who cannot tell them convincingly has mistaken his profession.

He's a Fool that makes his Doctor his Heir.

It may seem a strange principle to enunciate as the very first requirement in a hospital that it should do the sick no harm.

Looking out of a hospital window is different from looking out of any other. Somehow you do not see outside.

Of one thing I am certain, the body is not the measure of healing, peace is the measure.

When a lot of remedies are suggested for a disease, that means it can't be cured.

To do nothing is sometimes a good remedy.

My acupuncturist said, 'Take two thumbtacks and call me in the morning.'

I've decided to skip 'holistic'. I don't know what it means, and I don't want to know. That may seem extreme, but I followed the same strategy toward 'Gestalt' and the 'Twist', and lived to tell the tale.

My first neurologist had a very holistic approach to my illness. No more red meat, no more salt, no more alcohol. I said, 'What about sex?' He said, 'I'm seeing someone.'

I finally have a dental plan. I chew on the other side.

One finger in the throat and one in the rectum make a good diagnostician.

A medical maxim for doctors in diagnosis: when you hear hoofbeats, think of horses before zebras.

I have never gone to a doctor in my adult life, feeling instinctively that doctors meant either cutting or, just as bad, diet.

The modern sympathy with invalids is morbid. Illness of any kind is hardly a thing to be encouraged in others.

The doctor said, 'I have good news and bad news. The good news is you're not a hypochondriac ... '