We need cancer because, by the very fact of its insurability, it makes all other diseases, however virulent, not cancer.

— Adair, Gilbert

Nobody knows what the cause is, though some pretend they do; it like some hidden assassin waiting to strike at you. Childless women get it, and men when they retire; it as if there had to be some outlet for their foiled creative fire.

— Auden, W. H.

My veins are filled, once a week with a Neapolitan carpet cleaner distilled from the Adriatic and I am as bald as an egg. However I still get around and am mean to cats.

— Cheever, John

I don't think makeup is rocket science or a cure for cancer.

— Crawford, Cindy

I wish I had the voice of Homer to sing of rectal carcinoma.

— Haldane, John B. S.

Cancer patients are lied to, not just because the disease is (or is thought to be) a death sentence, but because it is felt to be obscene -- in the original meaning of that word: ill-omened, abominable, repugnant to the senses.

— Sontag, Susan