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.
ABRAHAM VERGHESEThis 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
More Abraham Verghese Quotes
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I’ve always wanted to write a book like that, with the sense that you are contributing to the discourse in middle America,
ABRAHAM VERGHESE -
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.
ABRAHAM VERGHESE -
If it does nothing else, allows one the opportunity to make prolonged observations about one’s fellow travelers.
ABRAHAM VERGHESE -
I still find the best way to understand a hospitalized patient is not by staring at the computer screen but by going to see the patient; it’s only at the bedside that I can figure out what is important.
ABRAHAM VERGHESE -
If we are fortunate, we ‘beat’ the cancer. If not, we are posthumously praised for having ‘succumbed after a long battle.’
ABRAHAM VERGHESE -
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?
ABRAHAM VERGHESE -
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.
ABRAHAM VERGHESE -
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.
ABRAHAM VERGHESE -
We have the sense that medical students come to medicine with a great capacity to understand the suffering of patients.
ABRAHAM VERGHESE -
As she bent over the child she realized that the tragedy of death had to do entirely with what was left unfulfilled.
ABRAHAM VERGHESE -
Life, too, is like that. You live it forward, but understand it backward. It is only when you stop and look to the rear that you see the corpse caught under your wheel.
ABRAHAM VERGHESE -
By visiting patients in their home, by helping them come to terms with their illness, I could heal when I could not cure.
ABRAHAM VERGHESE -
We aren’t even fighting disease. Its poverty. Money for food, medicines… that helps.
ABRAHAM VERGHESE -
Sometimes this wound occurs at the moment of birth, sometimes it happens later. We are all fixing what is broken.
ABRAHAM VERGHESE -
Empathy can be replaced by cynicism.
ABRAHAM VERGHESE