David Rakoff Quotes

It's not at all good when your cancer is 'palpable' from the outside. Especially when, as at this stage, they didn't even know where the primary source was. Carcinoma works cunningly from the inside out. Detection and treatment often work more slowly and gropingly, from the outside in.

When I first sat down with my oncologist the day before Thanksgiving, and she told me I would need 8 rounds of chemo, one of my first questions admittedly was: 'Will I lose my hair?' It sounds shallow, I know, but it was a very scary image to me.

That was just kind of a surprise when the doctor said, 'We did a biopsy on your appendix, and you have cancer.'

Above all, cancer is a spiritual practice that teaches me about faith and resilience.

It doesn't hit you until you pull up to the hospital, and you see 'cancer' in big letters, and you're the patient. Then it all kind of comes home.

There are no greater treasures than the highest human qualities such as compassion, courage and hope. Not even tragic accident or disaster can destroy such treasures of the heart.

We should be inspired by people... who show that human beings can be kind, brave, generous, beautiful, strong-even in the most difficult circumstances.

When I first went to places where people were suffering from war and persecution, I felt ashamed of my feelings of sadness. I could see more possibilities in my life.

There are reasons to go on living despite what horrors may come in your life. And love informs those reasons.

I must thank my good friend Nigel Brennan. His strength of character in the midst of extreme hardship inspired me during the darkest days. Despite our separation, he always managed to find small ways to remind me that there are gentlemen in the world, even when I was surrounded by just the opposite.

It's inspirational to see someone who is dying smile.

The brave who focus on all things good and all things beautiful and all things true, even in the small, who give thanks for it and discover joy even in the here and now, they are the change agents who bring fullest Light to all the world.

I discovered that joy is not the negation of pain, but rather acknowledging the presence of pain and feeling happiness in spite of it.

My most heartfelt thank you goes to Impact Future Media and Cartoon Monkey Studio. Their dedication to the truth is very uncommon in the world we live in today. I am now, and will always be, grateful to their organizations.

I think having the cancer allowed me to be able to freely talk about my faith.

I can't help seeing 'Waste Land' as the third in a triptych with my earlier films 'Devil's Playground' and 'Blindsight,' and not least in the awe and gratitude I feel for the group of people who were courageous enough to share their stories with us - and to live lives so rich in inspiration for us all.

I'd never heard of colon cancer. Baseball wasn't even important to me. I have a wife and two girls. That's what was important. The doctors told me and all I could say was, 'When are we going to get this thing out?'

Cancer opens many doors. One of the most important is your heart.

I love New York. I was sad, depressed and incredibly moved by our fellow countrymen and what they've done. I wanted to give people a chance to see something funny, have a distraction.

Now I'm fighting cancer, everybody knows that. People ask me all the time about how you go through your life and how's your day, and nothing is changed for me.

When you receive a cancer diagnosis, you're more vulnerable than at any other time in your life. I've personally had the experience twice. My only hope for survival was alternatives. But that was my decision, what I thought was best for me.

What does it mean to be an oncologist? It means that you get to sit in at a moment of another person's life that is so hyper-acute, and not just because they're medically ill. It's also a moment of hope and expectation and concern.

We all know about love, faith, sadness, despair, hope, hopelessness, longing, desire... those are things we all have inside of us, and that's what my songs are about... what it means to be a human being.

And the smile that is worth the praises of earth is the smile that shines through tears.

I believe that every single event in life happens in an opportunity to choose love over fear.