With the many fundamental advancements that constitute modern cardiovascular medicine, incremental treatment differences in so-called hard clinical end points are becoming increasingly more difficult to achieve. But along with this difficulty has come the recognition that many therapies, particularly those implemented in relatively stable patients, may aim more to improve the quality rather than the quantity of life. The key question that often arises is how we can actually measure these therapeutic outcomes in patients. Too often, we cardiologists find ourselves debating the relative merits of small absolute risk differences in hard clinical end points, rather than focusing on what may matter more to patients: how they actually feel. Even the term hard end points encompasses a pejorative view of health-related quality of life (HRQoL) measures, which are sometimes deemed to be softer or less objective.