The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks

by Rebecca Skloot

“If you pretty up how people spoke and change the things they said, that’s dishonest. It’s taking away their lives, their experiences, and their selves.”

“HeLa cells were one of the most important things that happened to medicine in the last hundred years,”

Mississippi Appendectomies, unnecessary hysterectomies performed on poor black women to stop them from reproducing, and to give young doctors a chance to practice the procedure.

What they found was disturbing: in mission after mission, noncancerous cells grew normally in orbit, but HeLa became more powerful, dividing faster with each trip.

glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase-A (G6PD-A),

that’s the Lord telling you something.”

“He died for us that we might have the right to eternal life. A lot of people don’t believe that. But you can have eternal life.

“Those who believe in me will live, even though they die; and those who live and believe in me will never die.”

“Someone will ask, ‘How can the dead be raised to life? What kind of body will they have?’ You fool! When you plant a seed in the ground, it does not sprout to life unless it dies. And what you plant is a bare seed … not the full-bodied plant that will later grow up. God provides that seed with the body he wishes; he gives each seed its own proper body.”

when the Lord chooses an angel to do his work, you never know what they going to ...

“There are heavenly bodies and earthly bodies, the beauty that belongs to heavenly bodies is different from the beaut...

“This is how it will be when the dead are raised to life. When the body is buried, it is mortal; when raised, it will be immortal. There is, of course, a physical body, so there has to be a spiritual body.”

Jesus told his followers, “I give them eternal life, and they shall never die.” Plain, simple, to the point.

“Why do you who are here find it impossible to believe that God raises the dead?”