Quote

A rich man's faults are covered with money, but a surgeon's faults are covered with earth.

Abraham Verghese

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Abraham Verghese
Age: 69
Born: 1955
Born: January 1
Physician
University Teacher
Writer
Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia
Money
Earth
Men
Surgeon
Surgeons
Covered
Faults
Rich

More quotes by Abraham Verghese

Image
The most important innovation in medicine to come in the next 10 years: the power of the human hand.
Abraham Verghese
Image
Pray tell us, what's your favorite number?
Abraham Verghese
Image
Certainly when I got to medical school, I had role models of the kind of physicians I wanted to be. I had an uncle who, looking back, was probably not the most-educated physician around but he carried it off so well.
Abraham Verghese
Image
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. I've had my share of angels.
Abraham Verghese
Image
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. It's an eerie feeling, as if my old mentor is not just in the room, but in my shoes, using me as his mouthpiece.
Abraham Verghese
Image
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
Image
I always wondered if the good people who send us bibles really think that hookworm and hunger are healed by scripture? Our patients are illiterate.
Abraham Verghese
Image
What did it say when a man had fewer clothes than books?
Abraham Verghese
Image
Ignorance was just as dynamic as knowledge, and it grew in the same proportion.
Abraham Verghese
Image
There is a point when grief exceeds the human capacity to emote, and as a result one is strangely composed-
Abraham Verghese
Image
When I use the word 'healing', by that I mean that every disease has a physical element that we're very good at handling, but there's always a sense of the violation. 'Why me?' '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.
Abraham Verghese
Image
Geography is destiny.
Abraham Verghese
Image
The bottom line: health care reform is about the patient, not about the physician.
Abraham Verghese
Image
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
Image
Patients know in a heartbeat if they're getting a clumsy exam.
Abraham Verghese
Image
To be around someone whose self-confidence is more than what our first glance led us to expect is seductive.
Abraham Verghese
Image
I love to read poetry but I haven't written anything that I'm willing to show anybody.
Abraham Verghese
Image
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
Image
No blade can puncture the human heart like the well-chosen words of a spiteful son.
Abraham Verghese
Image
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