Abraham Verghese > Quotes

“The key to your happiness is to own your slippers, own who you are, own how you look, own your family, own the talents you have, and own the ones you don't. If you keep saying your slippers aren't yours, then you'll die searching, you'll die bitter, always feeling you were promised more. Not only our actions, but also our omissions, become our destiny.”
― Abraham Verghese, Cutting for Stone

“You live it forward, but understand it backward.”
― Abraham Verghese, Cutting for Stone

“Wasn't that the definition of home? Not where you are from, but where you are wanted”
― Abraham Verghese, Cutting for Stone

“The world turns on our every action, and our every omission, whether we know it or not.”
― Abraham Verghese, Cutting for Stone

“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, Cutting for Stone

“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, Cutting for Stone

“The key to your happiness is to...own who you are, own how you look, own your family, own the talents you have, and own the ones you don't. [Otherwise] you'll die searching, you'll die bitter, always feeling you were promised more. Not only our actions, but also our omissions, become our destiny.”
― Abraham Verghese

“I spent as much time as I could with Ghosh. I wanted every bit of wisdom he could impart to me. All sons should write down every word of what their fathers have to say to them. I tried. Why did it take an illness for me to recognize the value of time with him? It seems we humans never learn. And so we relearn the lesson every generation and then want to write epistles. We proselytize to our friends and shake them by the shoulders and tell them, "Seize the day! What matters is THIS moment!" Most of us can't go back and make restitution. We can't do a thing about our should haves and our could haves. But a few lucky men like Ghosh never have such worries; there was no restitution he needed to make, no moment he failed to seize.

Now and then Ghosh would grin and wink at me across the room. He was teaching me how to die, just as he'd taught me how to live.”
― Abraham Verghese, Cutting for Stone

“Make something beautiful of your life.”
― Abraham Verghese, Cutting for Stone

“She died chasing greatness and never saw it each time it was in her hand, so she kept seeking it elsewhere, but never understood the work required to get it or to keep it.”
― Abraham Verghese, Cutting for Stone

“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. I grew up and I found my purpose and it was to become a physician. My intent wasn't to save the world as much as to heal myself. Few doctors will admit this, certainly not young ones, but subconsciously, in entering the profession, we must believe that ministering to others will heal our woundedness. And it can. but it can also deepen the wound.”
― Abraham Verghese, Cutting for Stone

“I chose the specialty of surgery because of Matron, that steady presence during my boyhood and adolescence. 'What is the hardest thing you can possibly do?' she said when I went to her for advice on the darkest day of the first half of my life.

I squirmed. How easily Matron probed the gap between ambition and expediency. 'Why must I do what is hardest?'

'Because, Marion, you are an instrument of God. Don't leave the instrument sitting in its case my son. Play! Leave no part of your instrument unexplored. Why settle for 'Three Blind Mice' when you can play the 'Gloria'?

'But, Matron, I can't dream of playing Bach...I couldn't read music.

'No, Marion,' she said her gaze soft...'No, not Bach's 'Gloria'. Yours! Your 'Gloria' lives within you. The greatest sin is not finding it, ignoring what God made possible in you.”
― Abraham Verghese, Cutting for Stone

“Not only our actions, but also our omissions, become our destiny.”
― Abraham Verghese, Cutting for Stone

“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, Cutting for Stone

“Pray tell us, what's your favorite number?"...
"Shiva jumped up to the board, uninvited, and wrote 10,213,223"...
"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'.”
― Abraham Verghese, Cutting for Stone

“Life is like that. You live it forward but understand in backward”
― Abraham Verghese, Cutting for Stone

“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, Cutting for Stone

“Life for the Italians was what it was, no more and no less, an interlude between meals”
― Abraham Verghese, Cutting for Stone

“...guilt leads to righteous action, but rarely is it the right action.”
― Abraham Verghese, Cutting for Stone

“To be around someone whose self-confidence is more than what our first glance led us to expect is seductive.”
― Abraham Verghese, Cutting for Stone

“No blade can puncture the human heart like the well-chosen words of a spiteful son.”
― Abraham Verghese, Cutting for Stone

“It was a tale well known to children all over Africa: Abu Kassem, a miserly Baghdad merchant, had held on to his battered, much repaired pair of slippers even though they were objects of derision. At last, even he couldn't stomach the sight of them. But his every attempt to get rid of his slippers ended in disaster: when he tossed them out of his window they landed on the head of a pregnant woman who miscarried, and Abu Kassem was thrown in jail; when he dropped them in the canal, the slippers choked off the main drain and caused flooding, and off Abu Kassem went to jail...

'One night when Tawfiq finished, another prisoner, a quiet dignified old man, said, 'Abu Kassem might as well build a special room for his slippers. Why try to lose them? He'll never escape.' The old man laughed, and he seemed happy when he said that. That night the old man died in his sleep.

We all saw it the same way. the old man was right. The slippers in the story mean that everything you see and do and touch, every seed you sow, or don't sow, becomes part of your destiny...

In order to start to get rid of your slippers, you have to admit they are yours, and if you do, then they will get rid of themselves.

Ghosh sighed. 'I hope one day you see this as clearly as I did in Kerchele. The key to your happiness is to own your slippers, own who you are, own how you look, own your family, own the talents you have, and own the ones you don't. If you keep saying your slippers aren't yours, then you'll die searching, you'll die bitter, always feeling you were promised more. Not only our actions, but also our omissions, become our destiny.”
― Abraham Verghese, Cutting for Stone

“Not only our actions, but also our omissions, become our destiny.

From "Cutting for Stone”
― Abraham Verghese

“This is my life, I thought...I have excised the cancer from my past, cut it out; I have crossed the high plains, descended into the desert, traversed oceans, and planted my feet in new soil; I have been the apprentice, paid my dues, and have just become master of my ship. But when I look down, why do I see the ancient, tarred, mud-stained slippers that I buried at the start of the journey still stuck to my feet?”
― Abraham Verghese, Cutting for Stone

“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, Cutting for Stone

“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, Cutting for Stone

“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, Cutting for Stone

“A rich man's faults are covered with money, but a surgeon's faults are covered with earth.”
― Abraham Verghese, Cutting for Stone

“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, Cutting for Stone

“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, Cutting for Stone

“He was teaching me how to die, just as he'd taught me how to live.”
― Abraham Verghese, Cutting for Stone

“He had a theory that bedroom Amharic and bedside Amharic were really the same thing: Please lie down. Take off your shirt. Open your mouth. Take a deep breath...The language of love was the same as the language of medicine.”
― Abraham Verghese, Cutting for Stone

“You are an instrument of God. Don't leave the instrument sitting in its case, my son. Play! Leave no part of your instrument unexplored. Why settle for 'Three Blind Mice' when you can can play the 'Gloria'? No, not Bach's 'Gloria.' Yours! Your 'Gloria' lives within you. The greatest sin is not finding it, ignoring what God made possible in you.”
― Abraham Verghese, Cutting for Stone

“If 'ecstasy' meant the sudden intrusion of the sacred into the ordinary, then it had just happened to me.”
― Abraham Verghese, Cutting for Stone

“Being the firstborn gives you great patience. But you reach a point where after trying and trying you say, Patience be damned. Let them suffer their distorted worldview. 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 know you owe them nothing.”
― Abraham Verghese, Cutting for Stone

“There is a point when grief exceeds the human capacity to emote, and as a result one is strangely composed-”
― Abraham Verghese, Cutting for Stone

“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, Cutting for Stone

“I am forced to render some order to the events of my life, to say it began here, and then because of this, that happened, and this is how the end connects to the beginning, and so here I am.”
― Abraham Verghese, Cutting for Stone

“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, Cutting for Stone

“Geography is destiny.”
― Abraham Verghese, Cutting for Stone

“I wanted to write down every bit of wisdom he could impart to me. All sons should write down every word of what their fathers have to say to them. I tried. Why did it take an illness for me to recognize the value of time with him? It seems we humans never learn. And so we relearn the lesson every generation and then want to write epistles. We proselytize to our friends and shake time by the shoulders and tell them, "Seize the day! What matters is this moment!" Most of us can't go back and make restitution. We can't do a thing about our should haves and our could haves”
― Abraham Verghese, Cutting for Stone

“All my ghosts had vanished; the retribution that they sought had been exacted. I had nothing more to give, and nothing to fear.”
― Abraham Verghese, Cutting for Stone

“This was what growing up was about: hide the corpse, don't bare your heart, do make assumptions about the motives of others. They're certainly doing all these things to you.”
― Abraham Verghese, Cutting for Stone

“How beautiful and horrible life is, Hema thought; too horrible to simply call tragic. Life is worse than tragic." p 108”
― Abraham Verghese, Cutting for Stone

“it was all I had, all I've ever had, the only currency, the only proof that I was alive.
Memory." p 380”
― Abraham Verghese

“Why must I do what is hardest?" "Because, Marion, you are an instrument of God. Don't leave the instrument sitting in its case, my son. Play! Leave no part of your instrument unexplored. Why settle for 'Three Blind Mice' when you can play the 'Gloria'?”
― Abraham Verghese

“What a journey...what a day...what madness, so much worse than tragic! What to do except dance, dance, only dance...”
― Abraham Verghese, Cutting for Stone

“When a man is a mystery to himself you can hardly call him mysterious."

"God will judge us 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, Cutting for Stone

“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, Cutting for Stone

“All possibilities resided within me, and they required me to be here. If I left, what would be left of me?”
― Abraham Verghese, Cutting for Stone