Dear Life Quotes

“what dominates palliative medicine is not the proximity to death, but the best bits of living. Kindness, courage, love, tenderness – these are the qualities that so often saturate a person’s last days. It can be chaotic, messy, almost violent with grief, but I am surrounded at work by human beings at their most remarkable, unable to retreat from the fact and the ache of our impermanence, yet getting on with living and loving all the same.”
― Rachel Clarke, Dear Life: A Doctor's Story of Love and Loss

“the life we have left is still life in all its loveliness, if only we can inhabit the present.”
― Rachel Clarke, Dear Life: A Doctor's Story of Love and Loss

“hesitate and you shall be chastised. But over-confidence has its drawbacks. Arrogance and reflective practice do not go hand in hand.”
― Rachel Clarke, Dear Life: A Doctor's Story of Love and Loss

“There isn’t enough of anything as long as we live. But at intervals a sweetness appears and, given a chance, prevails.”
― Rachel Clarke, Dear Life: A Doctor's Story of Love and Loss

“But what dominates palliative medicine is not the proximity to death, but the best bits of living. Kindness, courage, love, tenderness – these are the qualities that so often saturate a person’s last days. It can be chaotic, messy, almost violent with grief, but I am surrounded at work by human beings at their most remarkable, unable to retreat from the fact and the ache of our impermanence, yet getting on with living and loving all the same.”
― Rachel Clarke, Dear Life: A Doctor’s Story of Love and Loss