It is the task of a lifetime. We’ll leave much unfinished for the next generation.
ABRAHAM VERGHESEThere is that lovely feeling of one reader telling another, ‘You must read this.’
More Abraham Verghese Quotes
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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 -
We are all fixing what is broken. It is the task of a lifetime. We’ll leave much unfinished for the next generation.
ABRAHAM VERGHESE -
My VIP patients often regret so many things on their deathbeds. They regret the bitterness they’ll leave in people’s hearts.
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 -
Pray tell us, what’s your favorite number?
ABRAHAM VERGHESE -
I joke, but I only half joke, that if you come to one of our hospitals missing a limb, no one will believe you till they get a CAT scan, MRI, or orthopedic consult.
ABRAHAM VERGHESE -
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 -
My sense is that the wonderful technology that we have to visualize the inside of the body often leaves physicians feeling that the exam is a waste of time and so they may shortchange the ritual.
ABRAHAM VERGHESE -
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 -
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 -
A discourse that begins at a book club in a living room, but then spreads. That is meaningful to me.
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 -
They realize the no money, no church service, no eulogy, no funeral procession no matter how elaborate, can remove the legacy of a mean spirit.
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I believe in black holes. I believe that as the universe empties into nothingness, past and future will smack together in the last swirl around the drain.
ABRAHAM VERGHESE -
Make something beautiful of your life.
ABRAHAM VERGHESE