Abraham Verghese Quotes, Uncles Quotes, School 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.

4 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Abraham Verghese Quotes , Uncles Quotes , School 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.

4 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Abraham Verghese Quotes , Greatness Quotes , Hands Quotes

The bottom line: health care reform is about the patient, not about the physician.

4 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Abraham Verghese Quotes , Physicians Quotes , Reform Quotes

There are moments as a teacher when I'm conscious that I'm trotting out the same exact phrase my professor used with me years ago. It's an eerie feeling, as if my old mentor is not just in the room, but in my shoes, using me as his mouthpiece.

4 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Abraham Verghese Quotes , Teacher Quotes , Years Quotes

When I wake to the gift of yet another sunrise my first thought is to rouse him and say, I owe you the sight of morning.

4 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Abraham Verghese Quotes , Morning Quotes , Sight Quotes

The most important innovation in medicine to come in the next 10 years: the power of the human hand.

4 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Abraham Verghese Quotes , Motivation Quotes , Inspiration Quotes

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

4 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Abraham Verghese Quotes , Broken Quotes , Generations 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.

4 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Abraham Verghese Quotes , Broken Quotes , Tasks Quotes

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

4 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Abraham Verghese Quotes , Book Quotes , Men Quotes

Though I am fascinated by knowledge, I am even more fascinated by wisdom.

4 years ago

Message Copied

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.

4 years ago

Message Copied

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

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

4 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Abraham Verghese Quotes , Comfort Quotes , Ears Quotes

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

4 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Abraham Verghese Quotes , Men Quotes , Mysterious Quotes

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.

4 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Abraham Verghese Quotes , Country Quotes , Godly 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.

4 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Abraham Verghese Quotes , Looks Quotes , Wheels 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.

4 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Abraham Verghese Quotes , Son Quotes , Play Quotes

He was teaching me how to die, just as he'd taught me how to live.

4 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Abraham Verghese Quotes , Teaching Quotes , Taught Quotes

In America, we have always taken it as an article of faith that we 'battle' cancer; we attack it with knives, we poison it with chemotherapy or we blast it with radiation. If we are fortunate, we 'beat' the cancer. If not, we are posthumously praised for having 'succumbed after a long battle.'

4 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Abraham Verghese Quotes , Cancer Quotes , Taken Quotes

By visiting patients in their home, by helping them come to terms with their illness, I could heal when I could not cure.

4 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Abraham Verghese Quotes , Home Quotes , Helping Quotes

I'm a great believer in geography being destiny.

4 years ago

Message Copied

Tags : Abraham Verghese Quotes , Destiny Quotes , Geography Quotes