A Match to the Heart Quotes

“It was difficult to know what was worse: being in a hospital where nothing worked and nobody cared, or being alone on an isolated ranch hundreds of miles from decent medical care.”
― Gretel Ehrlich, A Match to the Heart: One Woman's Story of Being Struck By Lightning

“That's why I spend so much time on what we call attitude, which, when you look at it, is really a complex, mind-body phenomonen. I really don't believe in medical miracles. People should give themselves more credit for their healing abilities. A doctor participates in the process , that's all. One of the best things a doctor can do is encourage a tough, fighting spirit and a sense of humor. Those people almost always do better than the others.”
― Gretel Ehrlich, A Match to the Heart: One Woman's Story of Being Struck By Lightning

“Is there anything we have made that has not appeared first in Nature?”
― Gretel Ehrlich, A Match to the Heart: One Woman's Story of Being Struck By Lightning

“It was spring, and while my new house was cramped and humble, it was on the sand and the ocean still came to the front door. At dawn I'd roll out of bed, not even bothering to change clothes, and walk. Squalls came and went. Storm surges carried huge swells into the cove, and as rain inebriated the coast, the thick stub of a rainbow pushed out of the sea like a green thumb on the horizon. After, the dark blue sheet of water turned metallic, and I wondered: What in nature is not a mirror, does not give back a true image of mind?”
― Gretel Ehrlich, A Match to the Heart: One Woman's Story of Being Struck By Lightning

“But the center did not hold. Each room was a composite flower's petal exploded out, propelled by fire ... I was dying. Hummingbirds circled my head, separating oxygen from blood with their beaks. I gulped the rich dessert of air. Sandhill cranes flew through the room, way up near the ceiling, their cries growing fainter. I was going the other way. ... Then I heard a nurse say to me: "Don't worry, we won't let you die.”
― Gretel Ehrlich, A Match to the Heart: One Woman's Story of Being Struck By Lightning

“If I held a match to my heart, would I be able to see its workings, would I know my body the way I know a city, with its internal civilization of chemical messengers, electrical storms, cellular cities in which past, present, and future are contained, would I walk the thousand miles of arterial roadways, bridging paths of communication, and coiled tubing for waste and nutrients, would I know where the passion to live and love comes from? It is no wonder we neglect the natural world outside ourselves when we do not have the interest to know the one within.”
― Gretel Ehrlich, A Match to the Heart: One Woman's Story of Being Struck By Lightning

“My only consolation was that the dogs came back. I had chest pains and all day Sam lay with his head against my heart. ,,, I couldn't tell if the dogs were sick or well, I was too miserable to know anything except that Death resided in the room: not as a human figure but as a dark fog rolling in, threatening to cover me; but the dogs stayed close and while my promise to keep them safe during a thunderstorm had proven fraudulent, their promise to keep me alive held good.”
― Gretel Ehrlich, A Match to the Heart: One Woman's Story of Being Struck By Lightning

“During the night, sheet lightning inlaid the walls with cool gold. I felt like an ancient, mummified child who had been found on a rock ledge near our ranch: bound tightly, unable to move, my dead face tipped backwards toward the moon.”
― Gretel Ehrlich, A Match to the Heart: One Woman's Story of Being Struck By Lightning

“Patients just need to be touched, that's all. (Blaine)”
― Gretel Ehrlich, A Match to the Heart: One Woman's Story of Being Struck By Lightning

“The tops of hemlocks and Sitka spruces pigtailed into pointed green purse strings.”
― Gretel Ehrlich, A Match to the Heart: One Woman's Story of Being Struck By Lightning

“First I have to discover what exactly is wrong with each patient. Medical students today don't spend enough time on simple diagnostic skills. They rely too heavily on technology. But when you have a whole bunch of symptoms and a complicated medical history, you have to listen and look and use your hands.”
― Gretel Ehrlich, A Match to the Heart: One Woman's Story of Being Struck By Lightning

“In the evenings the boat spun on its anchor and mist fell to its knees, raining directly into seawater. Trees grew on red buoys, bald eagles lifted out of dark trunks like white-steepled chapels, a raven ate a crab in the boat's crow's nest, and schools of herring, who sometimes migrate in rolled-up balls five or six inches thick, broad-jumped the incoming tide.”
― Gretel Ehrlich, A Match to the Heart: One Woman's Story of Being Struck By Lightning

“The body is encoded. It is also an instrument inside of which the song of our lives is sung. As he hunched over an elderly patient and placed a stethoscope to the man's chest, Blaine's eyes closed in deep concentration, as if listening to music.”
― Gretel Ehrlich, A Match to the Heart: One Woman's Story of Being Struck By Lightning

“I liked the fact that we'd all met because of our dogs; dogs don't care who is rich or poor, accomplished or struggling.”
― Gretel Ehrlich, A Match to the Heart: One Woman's Story of Being Struck By Lightning