Abraham Verghese Quotes, Important Quotes, Way Quotes

I still find the best way to understand a hospitalized patient is not by staring at the computer screen but by going to see the patient; it's only at the bedside that I can figure out what is important.

6 years ago

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Tags : Abraham Verghese Quotes , Important Quotes , Way Quotes

We're losing a ritual. We're losing a ritual that I believe is transformative, transcendent, and is at the heart of the patient-physician relationship.

6 years ago

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Tags : Abraham Verghese Quotes , Motivation Quotes , Believe 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.

6 years ago

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Tags : Abraham Verghese Quotes , Son Quotes , Play Quotes

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

6 years ago

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Tags : Abraham Verghese Quotes , Comfort Quotes , Ears Quotes

She felt the familiar calmness of an emergency, but she understood the falseness of that feeling, now that it was her life at stake.

6 years ago

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Tags : Abraham Verghese Quotes , Medicine Quotes , Feelings Quotes

According to Shiva, life is in the end about fixing holes. Shiva didn't speak in metaphors. fixing holes is precisely what he did. Still, it's an apt metaphor for our profession. But there's another kind of hole, and that is the wound that divides family. Sometimes this wound occurs at the moment of birth, sometimes it happens later. We are all fixing what is broken. It is the task of a lifetime. We'll leave much unfinished for the next generation.

6 years ago

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Tags : Abraham Verghese Quotes , Broken Quotes , Tasks Quotes

Being the first born gives you great patience.

6 years ago

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Tags : Abraham Verghese Quotes , Giving Quotes , Firsts Quotes

She died chasing greatness and never saw it each time it was in her hand, so she kept seeking it elsewhere, but never understood the work required to get it or to keep it.

6 years ago

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Tags : Abraham Verghese Quotes , Greatness Quotes , Hands Quotes

We come unbidden into this life, and if we are lucky we find a purpose beyond starvation, misery, and early death which, lest we forget, is the common lot. I grew up and I found my purpose and it was to become a physician. My intent wasn't to save the world as much as to heal myself. Few doctors will admit this, certainly not young ones, but subconsciously, in entering the profession, we must believe that ministering to others will heal our woundedness. And it can. but it can also deepen the wound.

6 years ago

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Tags : Abraham Verghese Quotes , Believe Quotes , Doctors 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?

6 years ago

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Tags : Abraham Verghese Quotes , Cancer Quotes , Ocean Quotes

Life for the Italians was what it was, no more and no less, an interlude between meals

6 years ago

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Tags : Abraham Verghese Quotes

Another day in paradise' was his inevitable pronouncement when he settled his head on his pillow. Now I understand what that meant: the uneventful day was a precious gift.

6 years ago

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Tags : Abraham Verghese Quotes , Paradise Quotes , Another Day 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.

6 years ago

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Tags : Abraham Verghese Quotes , Opportunity Quotes , Airports Quotes

When a man is a mystery to himself you can hardly call him mysterious.

6 years ago

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Tags : Abraham Verghese Quotes , Men Quotes , Mysterious 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.

6 years ago

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Tags : Abraham Verghese Quotes , Believe Quotes , Past Quotes

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

6 years ago

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Tags : Abraham Verghese Quotes , Snakes Quotes , Slides 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.

6 years ago

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Tags : Abraham Verghese Quotes , Thinking Quotes , Judging Quotes

If 'ecstasy' meant the sudden intrusion of the sacred into the ordinary, then it had just happened to me.

6 years ago

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Tags : Abraham Verghese Quotes , Ordinary Quotes , Sacred Quotes

I always wondered if the good people who send us bibles really think that hookworm and hunger are healed by scripture? Our patients are illiterate.

6 years ago

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Tags : Abraham Verghese Quotes , Thinking Quotes , People 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.

6 years ago

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Tags : Abraham Verghese Quotes , School Quotes , Sight Quotes