Autopsy Quotes

• Autopsies give us the facts but not the truth.

  Richard Selzer

  Giving, Facts

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• Nobody wants to conduct an autopsy on a dead saint.

  Robert Charles Wilson

  Saint, Want

  Robert Charles Wilson (2004). “Blind Lake”, p.75, Macmillan

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• It wasn't until I had performed by first autopsy that I realized that even the drabest human exteriors could contain the most beautiful viscera. After that, I would console myself for the plainness of my fellow bus-riders by dissecting them in my imagination.

  John B. S. Haldane

  Beautiful, Imagination, Firsts

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• What makes me so certain that the natural human lifespan is far in excess of the actual one is this. Among all my autopsies (and I have performed over 1000), I have never seen a person who died of old age. In fact, I do not think that anyone has ever died of old age yet. We invariably die because one vital part has worn out too early in proportion to the rest of the body.

  Hans Selye

  Health, Thinking, Medicine

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• When performing an autopsy, even the most inveterate spiritualist would have to question where the soul is.

  Anton Chekhov

  Death, Medicine, Soul

  Letter to A.S. Suvorin, May 7, 1889.

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• That made me think I could contribute more to society by looking at people on the autopsy table and feeding back the findings so that lots of people could benefit, rather than just treating patients one at a time.

  Michael Baden

  Thinking, People, Benefits

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• We think of Shots Fired as almost an autopsy of Ferguson that shows the events from every street in the house. And, in dealing with these two murders of a black victim and a white victim, we show the ways that communities and the media deal with victims differently based on race.

  Gina Prince-Bythewood

  Thinking, Two, White

  Source: www.mtv.com

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• When I see a large group of people, I wonder how many of them will eventually require autopsies.

  George Carlin

  People, Groups, Wonder

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• Shave a gorilla and it would be almost impossible, at twenty paces, to distinguish him from a heavyweight champion of the world. Skin a chimpanzee, and it would take an autopsy to prove he was not a theologian.

  H. L. Mencken

  Funny, Humor, Champion

  Baltimore Evening Sun, April 4, 1927.

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• At the morgue, people were so desensitized that they would eat lunch in the glass walled room adjacent to the autopsy room. A viewing room. Because it had the best air conditioning in the building. So they would eat in there and maybe somebody would come in who had been found after being dead for three days and they would say: That is the exact purple I want for those drapes in the study. They didn't miss a beat. They could eat through anything.

  David Sedaris

  Air, Purple, Lunch

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• I find it difficult to attend autopsies. Especially the smells.

  Patricia Cornwell

  Smell, Difficult

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• Married sex is like being awake during your own autopsy. It is root canal work without anesthetic.

  Al Goldstein

  Sex, Roots, Married

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• Yes. I did more research than I ever wanted to and saw some things I wish I didn't. I went on ride-alongs, spent time with Homicide, Cold Case, and SVU detectives, hung out in subways learning how to spot pervs and pick-pockets, viewed an autopsy, went to a police firing range, and witnessed court cases and I read, read, read.

  Mariska Hargitay

  Police, Wish, Research

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• I'll bet my autopsy reveals my mouth is too big.

  Bill Watterson

  Mouths, Bigs

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• The rule was "no autopsy, no foul".

  Stewart Granger

  Basketball, Famous Basketball, Foul

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• ...The next time I opened my eyes, I was in the morgue. This, all by itself, is enough to really ruin your day. I was lying on the examining table, and Butters, complete with his surgical gown and his tray of autopsy instruments, stood over me. 'I'm not dead!' I sputtered. 'I'm not dead!' - Harry Dresden, Death Masks, Jim Butcher

  Jim Butcher

  Lying, Eye, Gowns

  Jim Butcher (2003). “Death Masks: Book five of The Dresden Files”, p.359, Penguin Group

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• Jerusalem - a divided city, where demonstrations for and against various issues occur regularly. One day, during an Orthodox demonstration against autopsies, I happened to click a few frames while a young man pushed his hamsa (spread hand) into my camera, which is seen by some as 'the evil eye.' As it happened, it was the tail end of my roll of film and the image is actually a double exposure. This taught me that in spite of your careful framing, chance occurrences create the most interesting images.

  Micha Bar-Am

  Eye, Men, Issues

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• Literary studies were no more than a series of autopsies performed by heartless technicians. Worse than autopsies: biopsies. Vivisection. Even movies, which I love more than anything, more than life itself, they even do it with movies these days.

  Stephen Fry

  Heartless, Vivisection, Study

  Stephen Fry (2014). “Making History”, p.9, Soho Press

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• The show [Shots Fired] is an autopsy of our criminal justice system, a space where the conversation surrounding the issues in our country is offering a seat at the table to all the voices to be heard, a murder mystery, and grassroots look at our own humanity as we move through the parts and pieces of the story.

  Aisha Hinds

  Country, Moving, Voice

  Source: www.theaquarian.com

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• If America's soul becomes totally poisoned, part of the autopsy must read Vietnam. It can never be saved so long as it destroys the hopes of men the world over.

  Martin Luther King, Jr.

  Men, America, Long

  Beyond Vietnam -- A Time to Break Silence, Delivered 4 April 1967, Riverside Church, New York City

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• No, I love watching autopsies of disgusting mutant monsters

  Michael Grant

  Monsters, Mutants, Disgusting

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• There was no direct way to prevent the Boston murders. There are some easy ways to prevent likely future ones: by not inciting them. That's also true of another case of a suspect murdered, his body disposed of without autopsy, when he could easily have been apprehended and brought to trial: Osama bin Laden.

  Noam Chomsky

  Boston, Trials, Body

  Noam Chomsky (2015). “Because We Say So”, p.106, City Lights Books

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• A disease which new and obscure to you, Doctor, will be known only after death; and even then not without an autopsy will you examine it with exacting pains. But rare are those among the extremely busy clinicians who are willing or capable of doing this correctly.

  Herman Boerhaave

  Pain, Doctors, Disease

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• But for the last couple of weeks I’ve had this bizarre sensation that something is watching me. (Simone) You mean someONE, right? (Tate) I know it sounds crazy – (Simone) I just had a body walk off the table mid-autopsy and you think your story is nuts? (Tate)

  Sherrilyn Kenyon

  Couple, Crazy, Mean

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• A woman who'd lost her first son
  consoled us with an angel gone ahead
  to pray for our family--
  gone into that sky
  seeking oxygen,
  gone into autopsy

  Michael S. Harper

  Angel, Son, Oxygen

  Michael S. Harper (1977). “Images of Kin: New and Selected Poems”, p.197, University of Illinois Press

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