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Although surgeons know how to deal with bits of the brain, they don't really know how it works.

In a vague way, I always knew neurosurgery was different - more delicate, more difficult, more demanding. After all, we say things like, 'I'm no brain surgeon,' for a reason.

You don't have to be a brain surgeon to be a valuable person. You become valuable because of the knowledge that you have. And that doesn't mean you won't fail sometimes. The important thing is to keep trying.

A surgeon is surrounded by people who are sick, discouraged, afraid, embittered, dying - but also courageous, loving, wise, compassionate and alive.

Before operating on a patient's brain... I must first understand his mind: his identity, his values, what makes his life worth living, and what devastation makes it reasonable to let that life end.

As a surgeon you have to have a controlled arrogance. If it's uncontrolled, you kill people, but you have to be pretty arrogant to saw through a person's chest, take out their heart and believe you can fix it. Then, when you succeed and the patient survives, you pray, because it's only by the grace of God that you get there.

Surgeons always underestimate the pain and disability involved in what they do to people.

There is a tendency of people to try to make you believe only a few people are smart. As a brain surgeon, I know better than that.

While all doctors treat diseases, neurosurgeons' work is the crucible of identity. Every operation on the brain is, by necessity, a manipulation of the substance of our selves.

Good physicians are rarely dispassionate. They agonize and self-doubt over patients.