Not only our actions, but also our omissions, become our destiny.
ABRAHAM VERGHESEEmpathy can be replaced by cynicism.
More Abraham Verghese Quotes
-
-
The most important innovation in medicine to come in the next 10 years: the power of the human hand.
ABRAHAM VERGHESE -
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 -
If we are fortunate, we ‘beat’ the cancer. If not, we are posthumously praised for having ‘succumbed after a long battle.’
ABRAHAM VERGHESE -
He had so many ways of climbing into the tree house in his head, escaping the madness below, and pulling the ladder up behind him.
ABRAHAM VERGHESE -
In writing, as in medicine, there are no short cuts. You need stamina.
ABRAHAM VERGHESE -
Sometimes this wound occurs at the moment of birth, sometimes it happens later. We are all fixing what is broken.
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 -
Certainly when I got to medical school, I had role models of the kind of physicians I wanted to be.
ABRAHAM VERGHESE -
The only way to know where you are is by where you have just been.
ABRAHAM VERGHESE -
There is a point when grief exceeds the human capacity to emote, and as a result one is strangely composed-
ABRAHAM VERGHESE -
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 -
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 -
Pray tell us, what’s your favorite number?
ABRAHAM VERGHESE -
I think we can see how blessed we are in America to have access to the kind of health care we do if we are insured, and even if uninsured, how there is a safety net.
ABRAHAM VERGHESE -
If seems almost un-American to enjoy delays, and perhaps enjoy is not the best word, but certainly a delayed flight
ABRAHAM VERGHESE