When Breath Becomes Air

by Paul Kalanithi

Literature not only illuminated another’s experience, it provided, I believed, the richest material for moral reflection.

No philosopher can explain the sublime better than this, standing between day and night. It was as if this were the moment God said, “Let there be light!” You could not help but feel your specklike existence against the immensity of the mountain, the earth, the universe, and yet still feel your own two feet on the talus, reaffirming your presence amid the grandeur.

Science may provide the most useful way to organize empirical, reproducible data, but its power to do so is predicated on its inability to grasp the most central aspects of human life: hope, fear, love, hate, beauty, envy, honor, weakness, striving, suffering, virtue.

Yet I returned to the central values of Christianity—sacrifice, redemption, forgiveness—because I found them so compelling.

The main message of Jesus, I believed, is that mercy trumps justice every time.

Human knowledge is never contained in one person. It grows from the relationships we create between each other and the world, and still it is never complete.