Patients know in a heartbeat if they're getting a clumsy exam. Abraham Verghese More Quotes by Abraham Verghese More Quotes From Abraham Verghese No blade can puncture the human heart like the well-chosen words of a spiteful son. Abraham Verghese parenting heart son 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. Abraham Verghese caught wheels looks The world turns on our every action, and our every omission, whether we know it or not. Abraham Verghese omission action world He was teaching me how to die, just as he'd taught me how to live. Abraham Verghese taught dies teaching 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 relief holes jobs Don't Let Him Know is a rich, evocative and brilliantly told tale of family, of loyalties, and of love that must stay secret. Sandip Roy has broken new ground in this tale of the modern Indian family. A lovely read Abraham Verghese lovely loyalty broken 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 selfish winning heart We have the sense that medical students come to medicine with a great capacity to understand the suffering of patients. And then by the end of the third year they completely lose that ability, partly because we teach them the specialized language of medicine. Abraham Verghese medicine suffering years 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. Abraham Verghese lucky purpose common 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 escaping climbing house 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 Verghese hurt dream feelings Rituals, anthropologists will tell us, are about transformation. 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 baptism president use Make something beautiful of your life. Abraham Verghese something-beautiful beautiful 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. At times, with today's advances in technology, medicine in rural America looks very like it does in America's cities, but the variety of practices is enormous. The Country Doctor Revisited captures the trials and tribulations of medicine, but also the satisfaction and the extraordinary rewards that come to those who embrace such a practice. Abraham Verghese caring beautiful country 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 Verghese emergencies medicine feelings According to Shiva, life is in the end about fixing holes. Shiva didn't speak in metaphors. fixing holes is precisely what he did. Still, it's an apt metaphor for our profession. But there's another kind of hole, and that is the wound that divides family. Sometimes this wound occurs at the moment of birth, sometimes it happens later. 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 generations tasks broken There is that lovely feeling of one reader telling another, 'You must read this.' I've always wanted to write a book like that, with the sense that you are contributing to the discourse in middle America, a discourse that begins at a book club in a living room, but then spreads. That is meaningful to me. Abraham Verghese writing meaningful book My VIP patients often regret so many things on their deathbeds. They regret the bitterness they'll leave in people's hearts. 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 Verghese regret heart mean When I wake to the gift of yet another sunrise my first thought is to rouse him and say, I owe you the sight of morning. Abraham Verghese sunrise sight morning What we are fighting isn't godlessness--this is the most godly country on earth. We aren't even fighting disease. Its poverty. Money for food, medicines... that helps. When we cannot cure or save a life, our patients can at least feel cared for. It should be a basic human right. Abraham Verghese godly fighting country
