Betty Rollin

“My mother, who was a courageous and clear-thinking woman, said to me, 'I've had a wonderful life, but it's over, and I'm ready to go.'”

“The best-kept secret in the world is that people don't think. It's so unusual for anyone to think.”

“Dying is a right. It's not a privilege.”

“A breast is a small thing to lose, but it's a very big thing to lose when it's yours.”

“I am not a hero. I am just a woman who had a problem and wrote about it.”

“The ability to die is the one thing that we have that we can control. The rest of life is a crap shoot.”

“It’s hard to get on with your life when you’re not sure you have one.”

“The one thing you can't be is a hypocrite. You can be a murderer, you can be a thief, but you can't be a hypocrite.”

“What makes life worth living is love, work and, for me, a good laugh.”

“The trouble with denial is that it wears off.”

“I think one of the terrible things about the disease is that you are forced to be a kind of optimist.”

“If I were a doctor, I would not be able to look at my patients and not tell them the truth.”

“The only death I can control is my own. And I want to be able to do that.”

“The worst thing about a terminal illness is the loss of control.”