Quotes from Beat the Reaper

“Ah, youth. It's like heroin you've smoked instead of snorted. Gone so fast you can't believe you still have to pay for it.”
― Josh Bazell, quote from Beat the Reaper

“When God is truly angry, He will not send vengeful angels.

He will send Magdalena.

Then take her away.”
― Josh Bazell, quote from Beat the Reaper

“It's a weird curse, when you think about it. We're built for thought, and civilization, more than any other creature we've found. And all we really want to be is killers. ”
― Josh Bazell, quote from Beat the Reaper

“what a fascinating mix a hospital can be of people in a huge hurry and people too slow to get out of their way.”
― Josh Bazell, quote from Beat the Reaper

“Calling a tongue piecing 'cosmetic' is a bit of a stretch, since you don't get one because it makes you look better. You get one because you're so desperate for affection that you're willing to gruesomely harm yourself to advertise how well you suck dick.”
― Josh Bazell, quote from Beat the Reaper

“If you're going to be soulless, you should at least consider outsourcing your conscience to someone else.”
― Josh Bazell, quote from Beat the Reaper

“So I'm on my way to work and I stop to watch a pigeon fight a rat in the snow, and some fuckhead tries to mug me!”
― Josh Bazell, quote from Beat the Reaper

“The journey from shame to resentment is the shortest on there is.”
― Josh Bazell, quote from Beat the Reaper

“The fucking beef industry and the fucking HMO industry,' Friendly says. 'Al-Cowda and HMOsama.”
― Josh Bazell, quote from Beat the Reaper

“But rituals turn us all into fucking idiots. Like those birds that sleep with their heads facing backwards because their ancestors slept with their heads under their wings. Plutarch says carrying new wives across thresholds is stupid because we don't remember that it refers to the rape of the Sabine women - and that's fucking Plutarch, two thousand years ago. We still draw the Reaper with a scythe. We should draw him driving a John Deere for Archer Daniels Midland.”
― Josh Bazell, quote from Beat the Reaper

“that look you get after every bone in your face has been broken at least once and then allowed to set without medical attention”
― Josh Bazell, quote from Beat the Reaper

“Deliverance' is The Godfather for crackers.”
― Josh Bazell, quote from Beat the Reaper

“My medical students. Two cups of human misery in short white coats. One is male and the other one female, and they both have names. That's all I can ever remember about them.”
― Josh Bazell, quote from Beat the Reaper

“Llamar "intervención estética" a un piercing en la lengua es un poco elástico, habida cuenta de que no se lo ha hecho para estar más guapa. Se lo ha hecho porque está tan falta de cariño que no duda en causarse un grave perjuicio a sí misma para anunciar lo bien que chupa la polla.”
― Josh Bazell, quote from Beat the Reaper

“So I'm on my way to work and I stop to watch a pigeon fight a rat in the snow, and some fuckhead tries to mug me! Naturally there's
a gun. He comes up behind me and sticks it into the base of my skull. It’s cold, and it actually feels sort of good, in an acupressure
kind of way. “Take it easy, Doc,” he says.”
― Josh Bazell, quote from Beat the Reaper

“I should say here that being chronically sleep-deprived is so demonstrably similar to being drunk that hospitals often feel like giant, ceaseless office Christmas parties. Except that at a Christmas party the schmuck standing next to you isn't about to fillet your pancreas with something called a “hot knife.”
― Josh Bazell, quote from Beat the Reaper

“Camino del parque me pregunta Mershawn cómo sabía que el tío tenía enfisema, y le enumero los síntomas visibles que mostraba. Luego le digo:
- Lección de hoy, Mershawn. ¿Quiénes silban?
- ¿Los gilipollas?
- Vale. ¿Quién más?
Mershawn reflexiona un instante.
- La genet que está pensando en algo y que, de manera subliminal, lo asocia a una canción. Como cuando examinas un nervio del undécimo par craneal y empiezas a silbar "Mantén la cabeza erguida".
- Bien - apruebo -. Pero mucha gente también silba porque subconscientemente intenta incrementar la presión de aire en los pulmones, para hacer que pase más oxígeno entre los tejidos.
- No joda.
- Sin joder. ¿Te acuerdas de los enanitos de Blancanieves, que trabajan en la mina?
- Sí, vale.
- Si tienes silicosis, también te dejas el culo silbando.
- La hostia.
- Eso.
Hasta llegar a la esquina me siento como el Profesor Marmoset.”
― Josh Bazell, quote from Beat the Reaper

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About BookQuoters

BookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.

We thoughtfully gather quotes from our favorite books, both classic and current, and choose the ones that are most thought-provoking. Each quote represents a book that is interesting, well written and has potential to enhance the reader’s life. We also accept submissions from our visitors and will select the quotes we feel are most appealing to the BookQuoters community.

Founded in 2023, BookQuoters has quickly become a large and vibrant community of people who share an affinity for books. Books are seen by some as a throwback to a previous world; conversely, gleaning the main ideas of a book via a quote or a quick summary is typical of the Information Age but is a habit disdained by some diehard readers. We feel that we have the best of both worlds at BookQuoters; we read books cover-to-cover but offer you some of the highlights. We hope you’ll join us.