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. Siddhartha Mukherjee Read Quote
I could write a thesis on the physiology of vision. But I had no way to look through the fabric of confabulation spun by a man with severe lung disease who was prescribed ‘home oxygen’, but gave a false address out of embarrassment because he had no ‘home.’ Siddhartha Mukherjee Read Quote
I wanted to explore cancer not just biologically, but metaphorically. The idea that tuberculosis in the 19th century possessed the same kind of frightening and decaying quality was very interesting to me, and it seemed that one could explore the idea that every age defined its own illness. Siddhartha Mukherjee Read Quote
We know cancer is caused ultimately via a link between the environment and genes. There are genes inside cells that tell cells to grow and the same genes tell cells to stop growing. When you deregulate these genes, you unleash cancer. Now, what disrupts these genes? Mutations. Siddhartha Mukherjee Read Quote
If there’s a seminal discovery in oncology in the last 20 years, it’s that idea that cancer genes are often mutated versions of normal genes. Siddhartha Mukherjee Read Quote
I think the cardinal rule of learning to write is learning to read first. I learned to write by learning to read. Siddhartha Mukherjee Read Quote
There’s a phrase in Shakespeare: he refers to it as the ‘hidden imposthume’, and this idea of a hidden swelling is seminal to cancer. But even in more contemporary writing it’s called ‘the big C’. Siddhartha Mukherjee Read Quote
I began wondering, can one really write a biography of an illness? But I found myself thinking of cancer as this character that has lived for 4,000 years, and I wanted to know what was its birth, what is its mind, its personality, its psyche? Siddhartha Mukherjee Read Quote
Cell culture is a little like gardening. You sit and you look at cells, and then you see something and say, ‘You know, that doesn’t look right’. Siddhartha Mukherjee Read Quote
