Do No Harm: Stories of Life, Death, and Brain Surgery

by Henry Marsh

the most reliable route to personal happiness is to make others happy.

One quarter of the blood pumped every minute by the heart, after all, goes to the brain.

Life without hope is hopelessly difficult but at the end hope can so easily make fools of us all.

Surgeons must always tell the truth but rarely, if ever, deprive patients of all hope. It can be very difficult to find the balance between optimism and realism.

Few people outside medicine realize that what tortures doctors most is uncertainty, rather than the fact they often deal with people who are suffering or who are about to die.