Walter Isaacson Quotes

It's not about the money. This is about Terri. It's not about the Schindlers, it's not about the legislators, it's not about me, it's about what Terri Schiavo wanted.

I made the choice to have the double mastectomy, and for me it felt like the right choice, and it turned out to be the right choice.

I'm just going to have to grow old, because I'm too terrified to have anything done.

Health care decisions are the sole province of an individual, her family, her doctor and her faith. Fear of the law has no place in the equation.

A hospital may spend several million dollars separating a pair of conjoined twins even though that separation is likely to leave them worse off.

We all live in a time where we're supposed to have choices and how do we wrangle that and how do we make the best choices for ourselves and our families. It has nothing to do with feminism.

If you explain to a patient what can be done and what might be the downsides, let the patient choose; don't have ethicists, priests, or doctors say you may or may not have replacement cells.

One reason we resist making deliberate choices is that choice equals change and most of us, feeling the world is unpredictable enough, try to minimise the trauma of change in our personal lives.

As a free person, I ought to be allowed if I'm dying to take something.

I basically walked around with a goiter for four years because I was so afraid of surgery.

I am interested in the idea that people should be able to define their own happiness.

I can live my life, I can be at Disneyland and eat fried chicken, and that's my choice.

He who preserves a man's life against his will does the same thing as if he slew him.

If you don't do the choosing, life will choose for you, and it may not be the choice you want.

I don't want to prove anything; I merely want to live, to do no one harm but myself. I have the right to do that, haven't I?

People mostly do as they like, and that would be fine if they'd let other people do the same.

Well, you have the right to make a sacrifice of yourself, but I'll be damned if I'll let you sacrifice me!

Nobody can force you, not even the holy prophets.

I think the idea is that every person has to live for his or her own life and then make the choice to share it with other people. Maybe that is what makes people "participate.

Duty does not require any person to submit to the destruction of his personal ambitions and the right to live his own life in his own way.

Everyone should have the opportunity of not being over-influenced.

I have a right to live my life and just be me with whoever I choose. We just do the best we can.

For the sake of the sons - and even for the son's future wives - a woman must keep a part of her mind and heart entirely for herself. Every family is better off with a wife and mother who can astonish and occasionally dewilder.

If everyting's the same, then there aren't any choices! I want to wake up in the morning and decide things!" (Jonas) "It's the choosing that's imortant, isn't it?" The Giver asked him.

We are entering a new world in which we can choose to follow our own steps, not those that society forces us to take.