black
grey
blue
red
brown
white

The crookedness of the serpent is still straight enough to slide through the snake hole.

Abraham Verghese

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.
ABRAHAM VERGHESE

Believe Beyond Death Doctor Early Lucky Physician Purpose Starvation Unbidden
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.
ABRAHAM VERGHESE

Always Attack Battle Cancer Country Poison Taken
My VIP patients often regret so many things on their deathbeds. They regret the bitterness they’ll leave in people’s hearts.
ABRAHAM VERGHESE

Deathbed Heart Mean Patient People Regret VIP
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

Chasing Died Each Elsewhere Greatness Hand never Saw Seeking Time
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.
ABRAHAM VERGHESE

Advance Medicine Technology Time Today Variety
Still, it’s an apt metaphor for our profession. But there’s another kind of hole, and that is the wound that divides family.
ABRAHAM VERGHESE

Apt Divide Family Hole Kind Metaphor Profession Still
Tell us please, what treatment in an emergency is administered by ear?”….I met his gaze and I did not blink. “Words of comfort,” I said to my father.
ABRAHAM VERGHESE

Administered Blink Comfort Ear Emergency Father Gaze Treatment
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

Conscious Exact Moment Professor Teacher Trotting Year
Yesterday misspent can’t be recall’d Vanity makes beauty contemptible Wisdom is more valuable than riches.
ABRAHAM VERGHESE

Contemptible Misspent Rich Valuable Vanity Wisdom Yesterday
We’re losing a ritual. We’re losing a ritual that I believe is transformative, transcendent, and is at the heart of the patient-physician relationship.
ABRAHAM VERGHESE

Believe Herat Inspiration Motivation Patient Transcendent
If we are fortunate, we ‘beat’ the cancer. If not, we are posthumously praised for having ‘succumbed after a long battle.’
ABRAHAM VERGHESE

Battle Beat Cancer Fortunate Long Posthumously Praised Succumbed
I think we learn from medicine everywhere that it is, at its heart, a human endeavor, requiring good science but also a limitless curiosity and interest in your fellow human being, and that the physician-patient relationship is key; all else follows from it.
ABRAHAM VERGHESE

Endeavor Good Heart Human Key Limitless Medicine Requiring Science Thinking
When a man is a mystery to himself you can hardly call him mysterious.
ABRAHAM VERGHESE

Call Hardly Himself Man Mysterious Mystery
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

Absurdity Arrive Descend Hole Job Place Point Preserve relief Yourself
He was teaching me how to die, just as he’d taught me how to live.
ABRAHAM VERGHESE

Die Laugh Life Live Manner Taught Teaching
According to Shiva, life is in the end about fixing holes. Shiva didn’t speak in metaphors. fixing holes is precisely what he did.
ABRAHAM VERGHESE

Broken End Fixing Generation Hole Metaphors Precisely Shiva Task

The crookedness of the serpent is still straight enough to slide through the snake hole.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

The crookedness of the serpent is still straight enough to slide through the snake hole.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

More Abraham Verghese Quotes