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| Informative, captivating, and at times quite moving |
Cornelius Ryan, speaking of his awards, plaques, and medals ...
"each one less an honor than a challenge to make my work better."
On the subject of his research ...
"Professionally, I have never accepted a single piece of historical data without researching it to the fullest, collecting all the opinions and interviews I could."
In reference to A Bridge Too Far ...
"This will be the most difficult writing I've ever attempted. And this book is the greatest challenge I've ever faced. I've got to do it well or not do it at all. No matter what happens to me, I want my books to stand the test of time."
"You don't jolt a reader or a patient until rapport has been established."
"It is my profession to ask questions, to probe, to get at reasons, more so now than ever when my unreliable body must function in spite of what ails it."
To his first cancer doctor who berated him for asking so many questions and who said to him, "You are not medically trained, yet you insist on medical language," Ryan replied ...
"No, not precisely. I simply want to know what you have found, and I want permission to question what I don't understand."
On the subject of his illness, Ryan observed ...
"The word 'cancer' triggers about the same kind of paralyzing fear as leprosy or plague. One might as well write off the victim. He probably can't be counted on in business or as a friend for any length of time."
"The real problem with having cancer is that people get tired of waiting for you to die of it."
"The most difficult art to perfect is the art of being ill gracefully."
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| The author died 23 November 1974 two months after the book was published |
On the incidents of his meeting other cancer patients in hospitals and doctors offices at various stages of his illness ...
"There are no strangers among those whose lives have been shattered by cancer .... Frequently people never come to know each other's names and names are not important. The interest and concern that people show for one another wipe out a need for introductions."
"Strange to say, there is a virtue in having cancer. It makes one more sensitive to others.
Said one of his doctors, when discussing with Ryan the latter's pending appointment to see another physician ...
"I think you will find that Dr. __________ will be against my advice ... but I respect him greatly and I think you would indeed be making a mistake if you did not take the opportunity to see him and be examined by him."
From Mrs. Ryan, in the early stages of the Ryans' research on cancer ...
"Mortals cannot be omniscient. That is a tragedy for doctors and patients alike."
Ryan, on writing ...
"And by the end of the first paragraph I've got to hook my reader or I am lost, and worst, I will have lost him."
On his early (1970) findings in his own private cancer research ...
"But what shocks me most is to discover how much misinformation there is about cancer."
On what he learned about the body's lymphatic system ...
"But sometimes they (lymph nodes) misbehave. They can stop cancer cells or, often, they can turn out to be storehouses for cancer."
"Malignancy in the nodes," said one prominent physician who examined him, "is really lethal."
Some of Mrs. Ryan's many observations about her husband ...
"He was never patient with ignorance."
"He had never written speedily. There were too many facts to check and accuracy was his passion."
On writing A Bridge Too Far, while coping with his illness, Ryan lamented ...
"The thoughts pour but the writing trickles."
"... The canvas is so large that I must constantly keep the reasons for the assault in the forefront of my consciousness. For example: Montgomery's concern about getting across the Rhine and into the Ruhr was matched only by his arrogance in believing he was the sole man who could accomplish the job. The ambitions and jealousies of generals are not very different from those of other men, except that when a general's plan goes wrong, thousands of people pay for his mistake."
Mrs. Ryan on chemotherapy ...
"The strength of various anticancer drugs and their combinations can often only be determined by trial and error."
"There was fear, too, that in destroying cancer, chemotherapy might also do away with the body's natural immune response. The trick was to obtain a combination of toxic chemicals in proper dosages that could effectively aid the individual victim. There was no standard formula for everyone." [Emphasis mine.]Ryan on the same subject ...
"Chemotherapy is a real hit-and-miss affair."
"The dilemma--finding the right combination of medicines without producing severe toxic reactions in the patient."
Ryan on his own writing ...
"Lately we have been doing some of our best work on the book at night. I am very excited about it and ... am careful to let nothing of myself show through the work. If I did, Katie [his wife] would spot it and edit it out."
"There is too much greatness in the people involved in Market-Garden for my emotions to mingle with theirs."
"No one seems to realize that pain makes the mind sharper. I think I am writing better with cancer than I ever did without it."
"Writing demands strict discipline of thoughts."
"Propped up in bed," wrote Mrs. Ryan, "he continued to turn out handwritten pages at a speed he had never before achieved."And my favorite ...
"There can be no understanding of war or disease without knowledge of what the individuals involved endured."___________________
For more information on Cornelius Ryan, see the Cornelius Ryan Collection of World War II Papers | OHIO University Libraries.
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