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 VERGHESEIn writing, as in medicine, there are no short cuts. You need stamina.
More Abraham Verghese Quotes
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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.
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Geography is destiny.
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For one who has an interest in the body as text, airports are treasure troves of information.
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There is that lovely feeling of one reader telling another, ‘You must read this.’
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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
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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.
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Still, it’s an apt metaphor for our profession. But there’s another kind of hole, and that is the wound that divides family.
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We know the average American physician interrupts their patient in 14 seconds.
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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.
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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.
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Pray tell us, what’s your favorite number?
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I think America is really in denial about the degree to which residents, particularly foreign medical graduates, man the county hospitals of this country, and but for their services, I’m not sure how exactly we could manage.
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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.
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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. .
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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