“That’s the most interesting thing of all. The balance depends on the man’s frame of mind! Understand? Which means that if he’s cheerful and firm in spirit, there will be more sodium in the barrier; and no sickness, none whatever, will bring him to his death. But as soon as he loses heart, the potassium gains the upper hand and he might as well order himself a coffin . . . .”

“The physiology of optimism. The idea is sound. Quite sound. . . .”

“So I wouldn’t be surprised . . . if they discovered some sort of cesium salt in about a hundred years, one that spread out in the organism if there was a clear conscience and didn’t if there wasn’t. And it will depend on that cesium salt whether the cells of the tumor will grow or whether the tumor will clear up.”

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Cancer Ward