How sickness enlarges the dimension of a man’s self to himself! – Charles Lamb, Last Essays of Elia

Women agonize… over cancer; we take as a personal threat the lump in every friend’s breast. – Martha Weinman Lear, Heartsounds

Adversity is like a strong wind. It tears away from us all but the things that cannot be torn, so that we see ourselves as we really are. – Arthur Golden, Memoirs of a Geisha