Not only our actions, but also our omissions, become our destiny.
ABRAHAM VERGHESEYour 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.
More Abraham Verghese Quotes
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There is a point when grief exceeds the human capacity to emote, and as a result one is strangely composed-
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To be around someone whose self-confidence is more than what our first glance led us to expect is seductive.
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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.
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She had always assumed that she would have years to sort out the meaning of life…
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What we are fighting isn’t godlessness–this is the most godly country on earth.
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We come unbidden into this life, and if we are lucky we find a purpose beyond starvation, misery, and early death which, lest we forget, is the common lot.
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…guilt leads to righteous action, but rarely is it the right action.
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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.
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I’ve always wanted to write a book like that, with the sense that you are contributing to the discourse in middle America,
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That’s the funny thing about America–the blessed thing. As many people as there are to hold you back, there are angels whose humanity makes up for all the others.
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God will judge us, Mr. Harris, by–by what we did to relieve the suffering of our fellow human beings. I don’t think God cares what doctrine we embrace.
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I’m a great believer in geography being destiny.
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Wasn’t that the definition of home? Not where you are from, but where you are wanted
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The world turns on our every action, and our every omission, whether we know it or not.
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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’.
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How we treat the least of our brethren,… that’s the measure of this country.
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The most important innovation in medicine to come in the next 10 years: the power of the human hand.
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We’re losing a ritual. We’re losing a ritual that I believe is transformative, transcendent, and is at the heart of the patient-physician relationship.
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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 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.
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When we cannot cure or save a life, our patients can at least feel cared for. It should be a basic human right.
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The greatest sin is not finding it, ignoring what God made possible in you
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As she bent over the child she realized that the tragedy of death had to do entirely with what was left unfulfilled.
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What treatment in an emergency is administered by ear?
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There is that lovely feeling of one reader telling another, ‘You must read this.’
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When you win, you often lose, that’s just a fact. There’s no currency to straighten a warped spirit, or open a closed heart, a selfish heart.
ABRAHAM VERGHESE