black
grey
blue
red
brown
white

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

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

Alive Currency Memories Memory Proof Stories
I had an uncle who, looking back, was probably not the most-educated physician around but he carried it off so well.
ABRAHAM VERGHESE

Back Carried Educated Looking Physician Probably Uncle Well
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

Ancient Apprentice Become Down Due Look Master Paid Ship
We have the sense that medical students come to medicine with a great capacity to understand the suffering of patients.
ABRAHAM VERGHESE

Capacity Great Medicine Patient Sense Student Suffering Year
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
The key to your happiness is to own your slippers, own who you are, own how you look, own your family, own the talents you have, and own the ones you don’t.
ABRAHAM VERGHESE

Destiny Family Happiness Key Motivational Own Slipper Talent
What we are fighting isn’t godlessness–this is the most godly country on earth.
ABRAHAM VERGHESE

Country Disease Fight Fighting Godly Poverty
The flip side of suicide is that it leaves a lingering question in the minds of the people who survived. Its like a cancer thats metastasized. The suicide is the cancer and the metastasis is all these people saying, Why? Why? Why?
ABRAHAM VERGHESE

Cancer Flip Leave Mind People Side Suicide
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 always wondered if the good people who send us bibles really think that hookworm and hunger are healed by scripture? Our patients are illiterate.
ABRAHAM VERGHESE

Hookworm Hunger People Scripture Thinking
When a man is a mystery to himself you can hardly call him mysterious.
ABRAHAM VERGHESE

Call Hardly Himself Man Mysterious Mystery
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 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

Black Country Day Doctor Image Medicine Revisited Romantic Rural Technology
Don’t Let Him Know is a rich, evocative and brilliantly told tale of family, of loyalties, and of love that must stay secret.
ABRAHAM VERGHESE

Broken Evocative Family Lovely Loyalty Secret Share Stay Told
Pray tell us, what’s your favorite number?
ABRAHAM VERGHESE

Favorite Mathematics Number Pray Praying Share Tell
Why is my leg broken on the ski trip and not anyone else’s?’ And I think that medicine has done a terrible job of addressing that spiritual violation.
ABRAHAM VERGHESE

Addressing Anyone Broken Job Leg Medicine Terrible Trip
If ‘ecstasy’ meant the sudden intrusion of the sacred into the ordinary, then it had just happened to me.
ABRAHAM VERGHESE

Ecstasy Happened Intrusion Ordinary Sacred Sudden
You are an instrument of God. Don’t leave the instrument sitting in its case, my son. Play! Leave no part of your instrument unexplored. .
ABRAHAM VERGHESE

God Instrument Leave Play Sitting Son Three
Why settle for ‘Three Blind Mice’ when you can can play the ‘Gloria’? No, not Bach’s ‘Gloria.’ Yours! Your ‘Gloria’ lives within you.
ABRAHAM VERGHESE

Bach Blind Gloria Live Mice Play Settle Three Yours
No blade can puncture the human heart like the well-chosen words of a spiteful son.
ABRAHAM VERGHESE

Blade Heart Human Parenting Puncture Son Spiteful
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 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
…guilt leads to righteous action, but rarely is it the right action.
ABRAHAM VERGHESE

Action Guilt Lead Rarely Right Righteous
The rituals we use for marriage, baptism or inaugurating a president are as elaborate as they are because we associate the ritual with a major life passage, the crossing of a critical threshold, or in other words, with transformation.
ABRAHAM VERGHESE

Associate Baptism Elaborate Inauguration Marriage President Ritual
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

Bag Beautiful Black Caring Collection Country Literary Remove Romantic
And pray, why would this number interest us?” “It is the only number that describes itself when you read it, ‘One zero, two ones, three twos, two threes’.
ABRAHAM VERGHESE

Describe Interest Number One Only Pray Read Two Would Zero

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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

More Abraham Verghese Quotes