When my friends heard I had cancer, they found me surprisingly cheerful and talked about my courage. But it has nothing to do with courage, at least not for me. As far as I can tell, it’s a question of desire. I’m filled with desire—to live, to write, to do everything. Desire itself is a kind of immortality.
-- Anatole Broyard (Part One: Intoxicated by my Illness paragraph One )

Importance: This quote is a manifestation of Broyard's endeavor to accurately depict illness. The author sees much of the general public's vision of illness as based on an inaccurate projection of idealized suffering. Broyard also wants to make clear that one's reaction to a fatal illness does not have to be passive anger.

I’m not a doctor, and even as a patient I’m a mere beginner. Yet I am a critic, and being critically ill, I thought I might accept the pun and turn it on my condition...
-- Anatole Broyard (Part Two: Towards a Literature of Illness paragraph One )