Abraham Verghese Quotes, Cancer Quotes, Ocean Quotes

This is my life, I thought...I have excised the cancer from my past, cut it out; I have crossed the high plains, descended into the desert, traversed oceans, and planted my feet in new soil; I have been the apprentice, paid my dues, and have just become master of my ship. But when I look down, why do I see the ancient, tarred, mud-stained slippers that I buried at the start of the journey still stuck to my feet?

5 years ago

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Tags : Abraham Verghese Quotes , Cancer Quotes , Ocean Quotes

Pray tell us, what's your favorite number?

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Tags : Abraham Verghese Quotes , Math Quotes , Numbers Quotes

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

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Tags : Abraham Verghese Quotes , Book Quotes , Men Quotes

Life, too, is like that. You live it forward, but understand it backward. It is only when you stop and look to the rear that you see the corpse caught under your wheel.

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Tags : Abraham Verghese Quotes , Looks Quotes , Wheels Quotes

Your job is to preserve yourself, not to descend into their hole. It's a relief when you arrive at this place, the point of absurdity, because then you are free, you owe them nothing.

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Tags : Abraham Verghese Quotes , Jobs Quotes , Relief Quotes

No matter what ailed you, you went to see the barber surgeon who wound up cupping you, bleeding you, purging you. And, oh yes, if you wanted, he would give you a haircut and pull your tooth while he was at it.

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Tags : Abraham Verghese Quotes , Giving Quotes , Teeth Quotes

I was angry with myself because I still loved her, or at least I loved that dream of our togetherness. My feelings were unreasonable, irrational, and I couldn't change them. That hurt.

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Tags : Abraham Verghese Quotes , Dream Quotes , Hurt Quotes

No blade can puncture the human heart like the well-chosen words of a spiteful son.

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Tags : Abraham Verghese Quotes , Heart Quotes , Son Quotes

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.

5 years ago

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Tags : Abraham Verghese Quotes , Heart Quotes , Thinking 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

Ignorance was just as dynamic as knowledge, and it grew in the same proportion.

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Tags : Abraham Verghese Quotes , Ignorance Quotes , Proportion Quotes

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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Tags : Abraham Verghese Quotes , Believe Quotes , Past Quotes

God will judge us, Mr. Harris, by--by what we did to relieve the suffering of our fellow human beings. I don't think God cares what doctrine we embrace.

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Tags : Abraham Verghese Quotes , Thinking Quotes , Judging Quotes

Yesterday misspent can't be recall'd Vanity makes beauty contemptible Wisdom is more valuable than riches.

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Tags : Abraham Verghese Quotes , Vanity Quotes , Yesterday Quotes

We are all fixing what is broken. It is the task of a lifetime. We'll leave much unfinished for the next generation.

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Tags : Abraham Verghese Quotes , Broken Quotes , Generations Quotes

Patients know in a heartbeat if they're getting a clumsy exam.

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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

Certainly when I got to medical school, I had role models of the kind of physicians I wanted to be. I had an uncle who, looking back, was probably not the most-educated physician around but he carried it off so well.

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Tags : Abraham Verghese Quotes , Uncles Quotes , School Quotes

He had so many ways of climbing into the tree house in his head, escaping the madness below, and pulling the ladder up behind him.

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Tags : Abraham Verghese Quotes , Climbing Quotes , Escaping Quotes

You are an instrument of God. Don't leave the instrument sitting in its case, my son. Play! Leave no part of your instrument unexplored. Why settle for 'Three Blind Mice' when you can can play the 'Gloria'? No, not Bach's 'Gloria.' Yours! Your 'Gloria' lives within you. The greatest sin is not finding it, ignoring what God made possible in you.

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Tags : Abraham Verghese Quotes , Son Quotes , Play Quotes