Retirement – I thought it was a bad idea.

I always thought I would be a terrible driver because I’m sort of a wafty person, but it turns out I am very good at staying in between the lines. I passed my test last year.

And when I spoke once, very recently, about African artists, you were resistant to that idea of African art. The Africans who are artists, but they're artists, they were artists.

When I now think of how the uncertainty about my own future, and the proximity of death, threw me into torment, careering wildly between hope and despair, I look back in wonder at how little I thought about the effect I had on my own patients after I had spoken to them. I did worry that if my tone of voice was too pessimistic the poor patient might spend what little time they had left feeling deeply depressed, simply waiting to die. So I tried to find a balance between telling them the truth and not depriving them of hope. After a patient died, I only occasionally heard back from the family, so I had little way of knowing whether the way I had spoken to them was appropriate or not.

Dieting.

My inability to have romantic relationships.

My mother.

I don't think there is any such thing.

Conversationalist.

Pain and aging.