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
ABRAHAM VERGHESE
Abraham Verghese on cancer
Abraham Verghese117 quotes“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?”
More from Abraham Verghese
She felt the familiar calmness of an emergency, but she understood the falseness of that feeling, now that it was her life at stake.
Abraham VergheseAbraham Verghese You live it forward, but understand it backward.
Abraham VergheseAbraham Verghese The process of learning huge volumes of information about disease, of learning a specialised language, can ironically make one lose sight of the patient one came to serve;.
Abraham VergheseAbraham Verghese 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 VergheseAbraham Verghese Though I am fascinated by knowledge, I am even more fascinated by wisdom.
Abraham VergheseAbraham Verghese Pray tell us, what’s your favorite number?”… “Shiva jumped up to the board, uninvited, and wrote 10,213,223″… “
Abraham VergheseAbraham Verghese Life for the Italians was what it was, no more and no less, an interlude between meals
Abraham VergheseAbraham Verghese She had always assumed that she would have years to sort out the meaning of life…
Abraham VergheseAbraham Verghese I grew up and I found my purpose and it was to become a physician.
Abraham VergheseAbraham 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.
Abraham VergheseAbraham Verghese A discourse that begins at a book club in a living room, but then spreads. That is meaningful to me.
Abraham VergheseAbraham Verghese Being the first born gives you great patience.
Abraham VergheseAbraham Verghese Yesterday misspent can’t be recall’d Vanity makes beauty contemptible Wisdom is more valuable than riches.
Abraham VergheseAbraham Verghese No matter what ailed you, you went to see the barber surgeon who wound up cupping you, bleeding you, purging you.
Abraham VergheseAbraham Verghese 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 VergheseAbraham Verghese We must believe that ministering to others will heal our woundedness. And it can. but it can also deepen the wound.
Abraham VergheseAbraham Verghese
Original quotes
From our community writers
In this wilderness, Mankind is the animal I fear.
Addison SchmittAddison Schmitt The irony is that he broke the only person he never wanted to hurt.
Krishan PandeyKrishan Pandey I will wait, I am waiting, and I will love you with all the love I posses until this body is ash and I begin my search for you again.
Tyler Knott GregsonTyler Knott Gregson Nothing is permanent not even your pain.
Taj AroraTaj Arora Do not insist me to let you go, you come half hearted like a crescent moon, and you go heart-filled like a full moon which glows.
Nikita GandhiNikita Gandhi I want to fold you into my book, like a petal, so that you’d never leave.
Mira R. AridiMira R. Aridi It seems strange how we look in the same mirror, yet what stares back, is so painfully different.
Chris AllchinChris Allchin Do not measure yourself by success, failure, or a degree. Measure your life by the dreams you have.
Natalie MooneyNatalie Mooney
Meet the writers
More on cancer
Society is cancerous and bureaucracy is its cancer.
William S. BurroughsWilliam S. Burroughs USURY is the cancer of the world, which only the surgeon’s knife of Fascism can cut out of the life of the nations.
Ezra PoundEzra Pound I’ve had a hip replacement, I’ve beaten cancer, I had my hand operation, and I stopped drinking. Something inside of me just went, ‘I’m done.’
Eddie Van HalenEddie Van Halen Now I’m fighting cancer, everybody knows that. People ask me all the time about how you go through your life and how’s your day, and nothing is changed for me.
Jim ValvanoJim Valvano Cancer is like a cockroach. It just comes back stronger. I’m tearing apart the immune system of the cockroach and seeing how it ticks. I’ve opened up my own pathology center.
Eddie Van HalenEddie Van Halen Guilt is cancer. Guilt will confine you, torture you, destroy you as an artist. It’s a black wall. It’s a thief.
Dave GrohlDave Grohl Everyone should know that the ‘war on cancer’ is largely a fraud.
Linus PaulingLinus Pauling Everyone should know that most cancer research is largely a fraud, and that the major cancer research organizations are derelict in their duties to the people who support them.
Linus PaulingLinus Pauling