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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

I was taking care of people my age who were dying. The constant feeling, hearing from them, was that life is transient and can end very quickly, so don’t postpone your dreams.
ABRAHAM VERGHESE

Age Care Constant Dream Dying Feeling Hearing People Taking Transient
The world turns on our every action, and our every omission, whether we know it or not.
ABRAHAM VERGHESE

Action Know Omission Turn Whether World
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

Backward Caught Forward Life Look Near Stop Understand Wheel
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
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

Angry Dream Feeling Hurt Loved Myself Togetherness Unreasonable
My intent wasn’t to save the world as much as to heal myself. Few doctors will admit this, certainly not young ones, but subconsciously, in entering the profession
ABRAHAM VERGHESE

Admit Certainly Doctor Intent Myself One Subconsciously World Young
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
I love to read poetry but I haven’t written anything that I’m willing to show anybody.
ABRAHAM VERGHESE

Anybody Love Poetry Read Reading Show Willing Written
When I use the word ‘healing’, by that I mean that every disease has a physical element that we’re very good at handling, but there’s always a sense of the violation. ‘Why me?’ ‘
ABRAHAM VERGHESE

Disease Element Good Handling Healing Job Mean Physical Spiritual
Wasn’t that the definition of home? Not where you are from, but where you are wanted
ABRAHAM VERGHESE

Definition Home House Question Wanted
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
I’ve had my share of angels.
ABRAHAM VERGHESE

Angel Gift Surprise Mine Share Unique
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
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

Helping Home Patient
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
She had always assumed that she would have years to sort out the meaning of life…
ABRAHAM VERGHESE

Assumed Bent Child Children Life Meaning Over Realized Sort Tragedy Year

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.

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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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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