Brand-name drugs have no competition, since the government grants them very long, exclusive marketing rights.

The pharmaceutical industry isn't the only place where there's waste and inefficiency and profiteering. That happens in much of the rest of the health care industry.

Health care is a need; it's not a commodity, and it should be distributed according to need. If you're very sick, you should have a lot of it. If you're not sick, you shouldn't have a lot of it.

It's not just the right-wing crazies who oppose health reform. In addition, there are many sane Americans who worry about committing a trillion dollars to it.

There's no road map. There's no textbook on how grief works and when your heart will be open - or if it ever will.

Sickness, insanity and death were the angels that surrounded my cradle and they have followed me throughout my life.

When I was young, my parents were these titanic, infallible figures. But Mum's illness and Dad's battles with diabetes and heart attacks had a ripple effect on me - reminding me of my own mortality and that these illnesses are genetic.

The sublimity of wisdom is to do those things living, which are to be desired when dying.