“The ‘equilibrium’ that people see in me is really an illusion. I am as flawed as anyone. It’s only that I seem to have the knack of hiding.”
― Erich Segal, quote from Doctors
“although science could pinpoint the exact spot in the brain that ignites rage, they had yet to identify the location that produces love.”
― Erich Segal, quote from Doctors
“We have turned doctors into gods and worship their deity by offering up our bodies and our souls - not to mention our worldly goods.
And yet paradoxically, they are the most vulnerable of human beings. Their suicide rate is eight times the national average. Their percentage of drug addiction is one hundred times higher
And because they are painfully aware that they cannot live up to our expectations, their anguish is unquantifiably intense. They have aptly been called 'wounded healers.' "
~ Barney Livingston, M.D.”
― Erich Segal, quote from Doctors
“He had spent most of his lifetime studying the art of medicine and realized now that he would never really understand its mysteries.
For medicine is an eternal quest for reasons - causes that explain effects.
Science cannot comprehend a miracle.”
― Erich Segal, quote from Doctors
“Deep down I'm still afraid, but at least I can deal with it.”
― Erich Segal, quote from Doctors
“I urge you to engrave this on the template of your memories: there are thousands of diseases in this world, but Medical Science only has an empirical cure for twenty-six of them. The rest is … guesswork.”
― Erich Segal, quote from Doctors
“a real physician almost never seeks another doctor’s help. For they all are painfully aware of just how little anybody understands about curing the sick.”
― Erich Segal, quote from Doctors
“On his coronation in 1802, Gia-long wished to call his realm ‘Nam Viêt’ and sent envoys to gain Peking’s assent. The Manchu Son of Heaven, however, insisted that it be ‘Viêt Nam.’ The reason for this inversion is as follows: ‘Viêt Nam’ (or in Chinese Yüeh-nan) means, roughly, ‘to the south of Viêt (Yüeh),’ a realm conquered by the Han seventeen centuries earlier and reputed to cover today’s Chinese provinces of Kwangtung and Kwangsi, as well as the Red River valley. Gia-long’s ‘Nam Viêt,’ however, meant ‘Southern Viêt/Yüeh,’ in effect a claim to the old realm. In the words of Alexander Woodside, ‘the name “Vietnam” as a whole was hardly so well esteemed by Vietnamese rulers a century ago, emanating as it had from Peking, as it is in this century. An artificial appellation then, it was used extensively neither by the Chinese nor by the Vietnamese. The Chinese clung to the offensive T’ang word “Annam” . . . The Vietnamese court, on the other hand, privately invented another name for its kingdom in 1838–39 and did not bother to inform the Chinese. Its new name, Dai Nam, the “Great South” or “Imperial South,” appeared with regularity on court documents and official historical compilations. But it has not survived to the present.’3 This new name is interesting in two respects. First, it contains no ‘Viet’-namese element. Second, its territorial reference seems purely relational – ‘south’ (of the Middle Kingdom).4 That today’s Vietnamese proudly defend a Viêet Nam scornfully invented by a nineteenth-century Manchu dynast reminds us of Renan’s dictum that nations must have ‘oublié bien des choses,’ but also, paradoxically, of the imaginative power of nationalism. If”
― Benedict Anderson, quote from Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism
“Well, she thought, I'm certainly bright. She had wanted to meet a new boy and when she finally did meet one she didn't even find out his name”
― Beverly Cleary, quote from Fifteen
“Woe to the heart that has not loved in youth!”
― Ivan Turgenev, quote from Home of the Gentry
“Why, sir," said he, looking about him, "what splendour I see: gold lace, breeches, cocked hats. Allow me to recommend a sandwich. And would you be contemplating an attack, at all?"
"It had crossed my mind, I must admit," said Jack. "Indeed, I may go so far as to say, that I am afraid a conflict is now virtually inevitable. Did you notice we have cleared for action?”
― Patrick O'Brian, quote from The Mauritius Command
“Dr. Bone Specialist came in, made me stand up and hobble across the room, checked my reflexes, and then made me lie down on the table. He bent my right knee this way and that, up and down, all the way out to the side and in. Then he did the same with my left leg. He ordered X rays then started to leave the room. I panicked. I MUST GET DRUGS.
"What can I take for the pain?" I asked him before he got out the door.
"You can take some over the counter ibuprofen," he suggested. "But I wouldn't take more than nine a day."
I choked. Nine a day? I'd been popping forty. Nine a day? Like hell. I couldn't even go to the bathroom on my own, I hadn't slept in three weeks, and my normally sunny cheery disposition had turned into that of a very rabid dog. If I didn't get good drugs and get them now, it was straight to Shooter's World and then Walgreens pharmacy for me.
"I don't think you understand," I explained. "I can't go to work. I have spent the last four days with my mother who is addicted to QVC, watching jewelry shows, doll shows and make-up shows. I almost ordered a beef-jerky maker! Give me something, or I'm going to use your calf muscles to make the first batch!"
Without further ado, he hastily scribbled out a prescription for some codeine and was gone. I was happy.
My mother, however, had lost the ability to speak.”
― Laurie Notaro, quote from The Idiot Girls' Action-Adventure Club: True Tales from a Magnificent and Clumsy Life
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.
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