Abraham Verghese Quotes, Meaningful Quotes, Book Quotes

There is that lovely feeling of one reader telling another, 'You must read this.' I've always wanted to write a book like that, with the sense that you are contributing to the discourse in middle America, a discourse that begins at a book club in a living room, but then spreads. That is meaningful to me.

5 years ago

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Tags : Abraham Verghese Quotes , Meaningful Quotes , Book Quotes

I joke, but I only half joke, that if you come to one of our hospitals missing a limb, no one will believe you till they get a CAT scan, MRI, or orthopedic consult.

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Tags : Abraham Verghese Quotes , Motivation Quotes , Believe Quotes

That's the funny thing about America--the blessed thing. As many people as there are to hold you back, there are angels whose humanity makes up for all the others. I've had my share of angels.

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Tags : Abraham Verghese Quotes , Thank You Quotes , Blessed Quotes

For one who has an interest in the body as text, airports are treasure troves of information. It seems almost un-American to enjoy delays, and perhaps enjoy is not the best word, but certainly a delayed flight, if it does nothing else, allows one the opportunity to make prolonged observations about one's fellow travelers.

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Tags : Abraham Verghese Quotes , Opportunity Quotes , Airports Quotes

Make something beautiful of your life.

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I was taking care of people my age who were dying. The constant feeling, hearing from them, was that life is transient and can end very quickly, so don't postpone your dreams.

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Tags : Abraham Verghese Quotes , Dream Quotes , People Quotes

The only way to know where you are is by where you have just been.

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The world turns on our every action, and our every omission, whether we know it or not.

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Tags : Abraham Verghese Quotes , Omission Quotes , World Quotes

We have the sense that medical students come to medicine with a great capacity to understand the suffering of patients. And then by the end of the third year they completely lose that ability, partly because we teach them the specialized language of medicine.

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Tags : Abraham Verghese Quotes , Years Quotes , Medicine Quotes

It was all I had, all I've ever had, the only currency, the only proof that I was alive. Memory.

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Tags : Abraham Verghese Quotes , Memories Quotes , Stories Quotes

In an emergency, what treatment is given by ear? Words of Comfort.

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I think we learn from medicine everywhere that it is, at its heart, a human endeavor, requiring good science but also a limitless curiosity and interest in your fellow human being, and that the physician-patient relationship is key; all else follows from it.

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Tags : Abraham Verghese Quotes , Heart Quotes , Thinking Quotes

There is a point when grief exceeds the human capacity to emote, and as a result one is strangely composed-

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Being the first born gives you great patience.

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I believe in black holes. I believe that as the universe empties into nothingness, past and future will smack together in the last swirl around the drain.

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Wasn't that the definition of home? Not where you are from, but where you are wanted

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Tags : Abraham Verghese Quotes , Home Quotes , Definitions Quotes

What we need in medical schools is not to teach empathy, as much as to preserve it. The process of learning huge volumes of information about disease, of learning a specialised language, can ironically make one lose sight of the patient one came to serve; empathy can be replaced by cynicism.

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Tags : Abraham Verghese Quotes , School Quotes , Sight Quotes

What did it say when a man had fewer clothes than books?

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The crookedness of the serpent is still straight enough to slide through the snake hole.

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What we are fighting isn't godlessness--this is the most godly country on earth. We aren't even fighting disease. Its poverty. Money for food, medicines... that helps. When we cannot cure or save a life, our patients can at least feel cared for. It should be a basic human right.

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Tags : Abraham Verghese Quotes , Country Quotes , Godly Quotes