Amputation Quotes

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  A divorce is like an amputation: you survive it, but there's less of you.

  Margaret Atwood

  Broken Heart, Lost Love, Divorce

  Quoted in Time, 19 Mar. 1973

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• All women are misfits. We do not fit into this world without amputations.

  Marge Piercy

  Men, World, Fit

  26 Copy quote

• The state of society is one in which the members have suffered amputation from the trunk, and strut about so many walking monsters,—a good finger, a neck, a stomach, an elbow, but never a man.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Men, Necks, Monsters

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1866). “The Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson: Comprising His Essays, Lectures, Poems, and Orations”, p.175

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• The night before my amputation, my former basketball coach brought me a magazine with an article on an amputee who ran in the New York Marathon. It was then I decided to meet this new challenge head on and not only overcome my disability, but conquer it in such a way that I could never look back and say it disabled me.

  Terry Fox

  Basketball, New York, Night

  248 Copy quote

• To my mind, healing means returning
  a malfunctioning human body to full
  unrestricted function, not to remove
  parts of it by operation or amputation

  Rudolf Breuss

  Healing, Mean, Mind

  10 Copy quote

• Like a starfish, the heart endures its amputation.

  Gail Caldwell

  Heart, Endure, Starfish

  Gail Caldwell (2010). “Let's Take the Long Way Home: A Memoir of Friendship”, p.163, Random House

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• The state of society is one in which the members have suffered amputation from the trunk, and strut about so many walking monsters, - a good finger, a neck, a stomach, an elbow, but never a man. Man is thus metamorphosed into a thing, into many things. The planter, who is Man sent out into the field to gather food, is seldom cheered by any idea of the true dignity of his ministry. He sees his bushel and his cart, and nothing beyond, and sinks into the farmer, instead of Man on the farm.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Men, Land, Ideas

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1866). “The Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson: Comprising His Essays, Lectures, Poems, and Orations”, p.175

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• In these days before antiseptics, doctors themselves also suffered high mortality rates. Florence Nightingale, a nurse during the Crimean War (1853-1856), watched one particularly inept surgeon cut both himself and, somehow, a bystander while blundering about during an amputation. Both men contracted an infection and died, as did the patient. Nightingale commented that it was the only surgery she'd ever seen with 300 percent mortality.

  Sam Kean

  War, Cutting, Men

  10 Copy quote

• The death of a beloved is an amputation.

  C. S. Lewis

  Bereavement, Beloved

  "All at Sea by Decca Aitkenhead review - an inspiring memoir, never sentimental" by Claire Messud, www.theguardian.com. May 7, 2016.

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• It is not simply what one remembers, but why. There are sites of amputation where the past is severed from the body of the present. Remembering only encourages the growth of phantom limbs. And it is not simply what one remembers, or why, but what to do with what one remembers, which of the scattered pieces to carry forward, what to protect and preserve, what to leave behind.

  Camilla Gibb

  Past, Growth, Pieces

  Camilla Gibb (2007). “Sweetness in the Belly”, p.107, Penguin

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• The only way to cure an egotist from bragging is by surgery--amputation at the neck.

  Evan Esar

  Way, Necks, Bragging

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• Parting is inevitably painful, even for a short time. It's like an amputation, I feel a limb is being torn off, without which I shall be unable to function. And yet, once it is done... life rushes back into the void, richer, more vivid and fuller than before.

  Anne Morrow Lindbergh

  Death, Grief, Grieving

  Anne Morrow Lindbergh (1975). “GIFT FROM THE SEA”

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• One can't run in a park without a dog or make angels in the snow without a child and there are things one can't do without a lover, so the loss of the lover is like an amputation and the patient goes into shock.

  Merle Shain

  Heartbreak, Running, Dog

  Merle Shain (1973). “Some Men Are More Perfect Than Others”

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• ...for most people in the [Jewish] Ghetto [of Warsaw] nature lived only in memory -- no parks, birds, or greenery existed in the Ghetto -- and they suffered the loss of nature like a phantom-limb pain, an amputation that scrambled the body's rhythms, starved the senses, and made basic ideas about the world impossible for children to fathom.

  Diane Ackerman

  Children, Pain, Memories

  7 Copy quote

• Woe to those who get what they desire. Fulfillment leaves an empty space where your old self used to be, the self that pines and broods and reflects. You furnish a dream house in your imagination, but how startling and final when that dream house is your own address. What is left to you? Surrounded by what you wanted, you feel a sense of amputation. The feelings you were used to abiding with are useless. The conditions you established for your happiness are met. That youthful light-headed feeling whose sharp side is much like hunger is of no more use to you.

  Laurie Colwin

  Success, Dream, Self

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• The code of Hammurabi in ancient Babylon prescribed this
  punishment for a doctor convicted of inept surgery: amputation
  of the hands.

  L. M. Boyd

  Doctors, Hands, Punishment

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• I think any break-up from a long relationship has this accompanying feeling of who am I without this person. You feel like a half-person because you've integrated yourself into an idea of a couple for so long, and then teasing that out and finding out who you are without them, it just takes a while. It feels like an amputation.

  Greta Gerwig

  Couple, Thinking, Ideas

  Source: collider.com

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• Calf love doesn't usually survive amputation, Your Majesty.

  Megan Whalen Turner

  Majesty, Calves, King Of Attolia

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• I am happy to be able to be part of this Rock'n'Blues Fest as the first tour since the amputation of my right leg. I hope this gives me a leg up on the new year!

  Leslie West

  New Year, Rocks, Years

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• Faint hearts are encouraged when they read about others who, despite amputation, spinal cord injury, or psychiatric disorders have a vibrant trust and confidence in God.

  Joni Eareckson Tada

  Heart, Injury, Disorder

  Source: www.biblegateway.com

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• My father had osteomyelitis-his left arm was withered between his elbow and his shoulder ... . But the amputation of a Stone Age man called Leaf, a stoneworker, does not relate to my father at all.

  Jim Crace

  Father, Men, Age

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• stop the darkness and its amputations
  and find the real McCoy
  in the private holiness
  of my hands.

  Anne Sexton

  Real, Hands, Darkness

  Anne Sexton (1975). “The Awful Rowing Toward God”, Boston : Houghton Mifflin

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• This detachment (poverty, chastity, etc.) must not be mere amputation; everything which is shaken off must be simultaneously found again at a higher level.

  Gabriel Marcel

  Levels, Poverty, Etc

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• When Christians are caught in sin, they do not need isolation or amputation; they need restoration. The proper thing to do is to help them confess their sins and find forgiveness in Christ, and then welcome them back into the fellowship of the church.

  Philip Graham Ryken

  Christian, Church, Needs

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• Do not chase boys. Chasing boys is bad. Chasing boys can lead to horrible things like mansions going up into flames, hand amputations, and blindness. So have some self respect and don't let things get too far before the wedding day.

  Meg Cabot

  Boys, Self, Flames

  4 Copy quote