Abraham Verghese Quotes - Page 3

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Cancer Country Destiny Feelings Healthcare Heart Inspiration

Your job is to preserve yourself, not to descend into their hole. It's a relief when you arrive at this place, the point of absurdity, because then you are free, you owe them nothing.

Abraham Verghese

Jobs, Relief, Holes

Abraham Verghese (2012). “Cutting for Stone”, p.273, Random House India

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My sense is that the wonderful technology that we have to visualize the inside of the body often leaves physicians feeling that the exam is a waste of time and so they may shortchange the ritual.

Abraham Verghese

Technology, Feelings, Physicians

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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.

Abraham Verghese

Believe, Past, Black

"Cutting for Stone". Book by Abraham Verghese, February 2009.

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Patients know in a heartbeat if they're getting a clumsy exam.

Abraham Verghese

Patient, Exam, Heartbeat

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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.

Abraham Verghese

Greatness, Hands, Saws

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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.

Abraham Verghese

Selfish, Heart, Winning

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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.'

Abraham Verghese

Cancer, Taken, Knives

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A beautiful literary collection that tells of today's country doctor, somewhat removed from our romantic black-bag image of days gone by, but still fulfilling an essential need in caring for spread-out populations. At times, with today's advances in technology, medicine in rural America looks very like it does in America's cities, but the variety of practices is enormous. The Country Doctor Revisited captures the trials and tribulations of medicine, but also the satisfaction and the extraordinary rewards that come to those who embrace such a practice.

Abraham Verghese

Beautiful, Country, Caring

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

Abraham Verghese

Medicine, Feelings, Emergencies

Abraham Verghese (2012). “Cutting for Stone”, p.42, Random House India

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I love to read poetry but I haven't written anything that I'm willing to show anybody.

Abraham Verghese

Shows, Love To Read, Willing

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How we treat the least of our brethren,... that's the measure of this country.

Abraham Verghese

Country, Treats, Brethren

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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.

Abraham Verghese

Blessed, Thinking, America

Interview with John McMurtrie, www.sfgate.com. March 14, 2010.

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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.

Abraham Verghese

Children, Years, Tragedy

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

Abraham Verghese

Ordinary, Sacred, Intrusion

Abraham Verghese (2012). “Cutting for Stone”, p.375, Random House India

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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.

Abraham Verghese

Regret, Heart, Mean

Abraham Verghese (2012). “Cutting for Stone”, p.255, Random House India

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

Abraham Verghese

Meals

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I'm a great believer in geography being destiny.

Abraham Verghese

Destiny, Geography, Believer

"A Novel That's the Best Medicine". Interview with Tina Brown, www.thedailybeast.com. February 11, 2009.

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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.

Abraham Verghese

Country, Godly, Fighting

Abraham Verghese (2012). “Cutting for Stone”, p.115, Random House India

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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.

Abraham Verghese

Morning, Sight, Sunrise

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

Abraham Verghese

Memories, Stories, Alive

Abraham Verghese (2012). “Cutting for Stone”, p.272, Random House India

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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.

Abraham Verghese

Thank You, Blessed, Angel

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I joke, but I only half joke, that if you come to one of our hospitals missing a limb, no one will believe you till they get a CAT scan, MRI, or orthopedic consult.

Abraham Verghese

Motivation, Believe, Inspiration

"A doctor's touch". TED Talk, www.ted.com. July 2011.

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Geography is destiny.

Abraham Verghese

Destiny, Geography

Abraham Verghese (2016). “My Own Country: A Doctor's Story of a Town and its People in the Age of AIDS”, p.268, Simon and Schuster

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Be careful! Travel expands the mind and loosens the bowels.

Abraham Verghese

Mind, Bowels, Be Careful

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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.

Abraham Verghese

Uncles, School, Role Models

"A Novel That's the Best Medicine". Interview with Tina Brown, www.thedailybeast.com. February 11, 2009.

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Born: 1955
Occupation: Physician
Cite this Page: Citation

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