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It was all I had, all I've ever had, the only currency, the only proof that I was alive. Memory.

Abraham Verghese

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Abraham Verghese
Age: 69
Born: 1955
Born: January 1
Physician
University Teacher
Writer
Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia
Memories
Alive
Stories
Ever
Currency
Proof
Memory

More quotes by Abraham Verghese

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For one who has an interest in the body as text, airports are treasure troves of information. It seems almost un-American to enjoy delays, and perhaps enjoy is not the best word, but certainly a delayed flight, if it does nothing else, allows one the opportunity to make prolonged observations about one's fellow travelers.
Abraham Verghese
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Be careful! Travel expands the mind and loosens the bowels.
Abraham Verghese
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Students undergo a conversion in the third year of medical school - not pre-clinical to clinical, but pre-cynical to cynical.
Abraham Verghese
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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
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No matter what ailed you, you went to see the barber surgeon who wound up cupping you, bleeding you, purging you. And, oh yes, if you wanted, he would give you a haircut and pull your tooth while he was at it.
Abraham Verghese
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What did it say when a man had fewer clothes than books?
Abraham Verghese
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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
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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
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Being the first born gives you great patience.
Abraham Verghese
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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.
Abraham Verghese
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I love to read poetry but I haven't written anything that I'm willing to show anybody.
Abraham Verghese
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Yesterday misspent can't be recall'd Vanity makes beauty contemptible Wisdom is more valuable than riches.
Abraham Verghese
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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
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...guilt leads to righteous action, but rarely is it the right action.
Abraham Verghese
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Though I am fascinated by knowledge, I am even more fascinated by wisdom.
Abraham Verghese
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He was teaching me how to die, just as he'd taught me how to live.
Abraham Verghese
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No blade can puncture the human heart like the well-chosen words of a spiteful son.
Abraham Verghese
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I think we can see how blessed we are in America to have access to the kind of health care we do if we are insured, and even if uninsured, how there is a safety net. Now, as to the problem of how much health care costs and how we reform health care ... it is another story altogether.
Abraham Verghese
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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.
Abraham Verghese
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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