The writing I love has something memorable in it - an image, a smell. It's the connection between the moment and the whole concept, weaving the micro together with the macro so that it has a hold on people - that's writing.
Interpretation
The best writing evokes vivid imagery and connects small details to larger themes, creating a lasting impact on readers.
Atul Gawande emphasizes the essence of impactful writing, which lies in its ability to conjure memorable sensory experiences while simultaneously connecting these details to broader concepts. This dual connection enhances the reader's engagement, making the writing resonate on multiple levels, both personally and universally.
In practice
In a writing workshop, this quote can be used to inspire participants to focus on vivid details.
A failure often does not have to be a failure at all. However, you have to be ready for it-will you admit when things go wrong? Will you take steps to set them right?-because the difference between triumph and defeat, you'll find, isn't about willingness to take risks. It's about mastery of rescue.
No one teaches you how to think about money in medical school or residency. Yet, from the moment you start practicing, you must think about it. You must consider what is covered for a patient and what is not.
Just using a checklist requires [doctors] to embrace different values from ones we've had, like humility, discipline, teamwork.
When I do an operation, it's half a dozen people. When it goes beautifully, it's like a symphony, with everybody playing their part.
At times, in medicine, you feel you are inside a colossal and impossibly complex machine whose gears will turn for you only according to their own arbitrary rhythm. The notion that human caring, the effort to do better for people, might make a difference can seem hopelessly naive. But it isn't.
We look for medicine to be an orderly field of knowledge and procedure. But it is not. It is an imperfect science, an enterprise of constantly changing knowledge, uncertain information, fallible individuals, and at the same time lives on the line. There is science in what we do, yes, but also habit, intuition, and sometimes plain old guessing. The gap between what we know and what we aim for persists. And this gap complicates everything we do.
I will tell you what Jeanne was like. She was like a piano in a country where everyone has had their hands cut off.
Above all, a well-imagined story is organized around extraordinary human behaviors and unexpected and startling events, which help illuminate the commonplace and the ordinary.
My dream concept is that I have a camera and I am trying to photograph what is essentially invisible. And every once in a while I get a glimpse of her and I grab that picture.
I didn't want to make cinema so a person forgets himself and has a lot of fun. 'I forget myself, I am a little poor consumer.' I wanted to make a picture where someone who sees it say, 'This is me! This is me!'
The character of the artist doesn't enter into the nature of the art
Being essentially a creator, I never set out to shock, always thinking about creating my work and not about the benefits it could produce.
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