Abraham Verghese Quotes, Life Quotes

You live it forward, but understand it backward.

6 years ago

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Tags : Abraham Verghese Quotes , Life 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

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

6 years ago

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Tags : Abraham Verghese Quotes , Heart Quotes , Son 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

When I use the word 'healing', by that I mean that every disease has a physical element that we're very good at handling, but there's always a sense of the violation. 'Why me?' 'Why is my leg broken on the ski trip and not anyone else's?' And I think that medicine has done a terrible job of addressing that spiritual violation.

6 years ago

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Tags : Abraham Verghese Quotes , Spiritual Quotes , Jobs Quotes

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

6 years ago

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Tags : Abraham Verghese Quotes , Home Quotes , Helping Quotes

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

6 years ago

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Tags : Abraham Verghese Quotes , Memories Quotes , Stories Quotes

My VIP patients often regret so many things on their deathbeds. They regret the bitterness they'll leave in people's hearts. They realize the no money, no church service, no eulogy, no funeral procession no matter how elaborate, can remove the legacy of a mean spirit.

6 years ago

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Tags : Abraham Verghese Quotes , Regret Quotes , Heart 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 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.

6 years ago

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Tags : Abraham Verghese Quotes , Dream Quotes , People 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

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

When you win, you often lose, that's just a fact. There's no currency to straighten a warped spirit, or open a closed heart, a selfish heart.

6 years ago

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Tags : Abraham Verghese Quotes , Selfish Quotes , Heart 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.

6 years ago

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Tags : Abraham Verghese Quotes , Years Quotes , Medicine 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

To be around someone whose self-confidence is more than what our first glance led us to expect is seductive.

6 years ago

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Tags : Abraham Verghese Quotes , Self Confidence Quotes , Seductive Quotes

A rich man's faults are covered with money, but a surgeon's faults are covered with earth.

6 years ago

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Tags : Abraham Verghese Quotes , Men Quotes , Earth Quotes

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

6 years ago

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Tags : Abraham Verghese Quotes , Way Quotes , Where You Are 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.

6 years ago

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Tags : Abraham Verghese Quotes , Uncles Quotes , School Quotes

The flip side of suicide is that it leaves a lingering question in the minds of the people who survived. Its like a cancer thats metastasized. The suicide is the cancer and the metastasis is all these people saying, Why? Why? Why?

6 years ago

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Tags : Abraham Verghese Quotes , Suicide Quotes , Cancer Quotes