Abraham Verghese Quotes, Greatness Quotes, Hands 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.

5 years ago

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Tags : Abraham Verghese Quotes , Greatness Quotes , Hands Quotes

She had always assumed that she would have years to sort out the meaning of life... As she bent over the child she realized that the tragedy of death had to do entirely with what was left unfulfilled.

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Tags : Abraham Verghese Quotes , Children Quotes , Years 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.

5 years ago

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Tags : Abraham Verghese Quotes , Thinking Quotes , Judging 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

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.

5 years ago

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Tags : Abraham Verghese Quotes , Teacher Quotes , Years 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.

5 years ago

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Tags : Abraham Verghese Quotes , Motivation Quotes , Believe Quotes

In writing, as in medicine, there are no short cuts. You need stamina.

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Tags : Abraham Verghese Quotes , Writing Quotes , Cutting 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.

5 years ago

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Tags : Abraham Verghese Quotes , Broken Quotes , Tasks Quotes

Students undergo a conversion in the third year of medical school - not pre-clinical to clinical, but pre-cynical to cynical.

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Tags : Abraham Verghese Quotes , School Quotes , Years Quotes

Pray tell us, what's your favorite number?

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Tags : Abraham Verghese Quotes , Math Quotes , Numbers 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.

5 years ago

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Tags : Abraham Verghese Quotes , Son Quotes , Play 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

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

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

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

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Tags : Abraham Verghese 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.'

5 years ago

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Tags : Abraham Verghese Quotes , Cancer Quotes , Taken 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.

5 years ago

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Tags : Abraham Verghese Quotes , Years Quotes , Medicine Quotes

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

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Tags : Abraham Verghese Quotes , Home Quotes , Helping 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.

5 years ago

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

I think we can see how blessed we are in America to have access to the kind of health care we do if we are insured, and even if uninsured, how there is a safety net. Now, as to the problem of how much health care costs and how we reform health care ... it is another story altogether.

5 years ago

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Tags : Abraham Verghese Quotes , Blessed Quotes , Thinking Quotes