Quotes from The House of God

“The patient is the one with the disease”
― Samuel Shem, quote from The House of God

“Life's like a penis; When it's soft you can't beat it; When it's hard you get screwed. - The Fat Man, Medical Resident in The House of God”
― Samuel Shem, quote from The House of God

“Basch: So why don't you ask her out?

The Runt: I'm scared she wouldn't like me and say no.

-So what? What have you got to lose?

-The possibility -if she says no- that she might have said yes. Whatever I do, I don't want to lose that possibility.”
― Samuel Shem, quote from The House of God

“Law XIII. THE DELIVERY OF MEDICAL CARE IS TO DO AS MUCH NOTHING AS POSSIBLE”
― Samuel Shem, quote from The House of God

“There is no body cavity that cannot be reached with a number fourteen needle and a good strong arm.”
― Samuel Shem, quote from The House of God

“It's an incredible paradox that being a doctor is so degrading and yet is so valued by society”
― Samuel Shem, quote from The House of God

“Gomers are human beings who have lost what goes into being human beings. They want to die, and we will not let them.”
― Samuel Shem, quote from The House of God

“To do nothing for the gomers was to do something, and the more conscientiously I did nothing the better they got.”
― Samuel Shem, quote from The House of God

“I found myself thinking of Potts as a tragic figure, a guy who'd been a happy towheaded kid you'd love to take fishing with you, who'd mistakenly invested in academic medicine when he'd have been happy in his family business, and who'd become a splattered mess on the parking lot of a hospital in a city he'd despised. What had been the seductiveness of medicine? Why?”
― Samuel Shem, quote from The House of God

“We were putting into these gomers our fear of death, but who knew if they feared death? Perhaps they welcomed death like a dear long-lost cousin, grown old but still known, coming to visit, relieving the loneliness, the failing of the senses, the fury of the half-blind looking into the mirror and not recognizing who is looking back, a dear friend, a dear reliever, a healer who would be with them for an eternity, the same eternity as the long ago, before birth.”
― Samuel Shem, quote from The House of God

“I realized with alarm that I hadn’t learned how to save anyone at all, not Dr. Sanders or Lazarus or Jimmy or Saul or Anna O., and that what I was thrilled about was learning how to save myself.”
― Samuel Shem, quote from The House of God

“It ain't easy to do nothing, now that society is telling everyone that their body is fundamentally flawed and about to self-destruct. People are afraid they're on the verge of death all the time”
― Samuel Shem, quote from The House of God

“This wine makes me feel like I’m bathed in amnion, breathless, fed by the motherbloodflow in the umbilical vein, fetal, slippery and tumbling over and over in the warmth of the beating womb, warm amnion, warmnion.”
― Samuel Shem, quote from The House of God

“You know what they say: It's better to have dyspareuned than never to have pareuned at all.”
― Samuel Shem, quote from The House of God

“Every intern makes mistakes. The important thing is neither to make the same mistakes twice nor to make a whole bunch of mistakes all at once.”
― Samuel Shem, quote from The House of God

“Key concept," said the Fat Man, "to think that you're doing a shitty job. If you resign yourself to doing a shitty job, you go ahead and get the job done, and since we're all in the ninety-ninth percentile of interns, at one of the best ternships in the world, what you do turns out to be a terrific job, a superlative job. Don't forget that four out of every ten interns in America can't speak English.”
― Samuel Shem, quote from The House of God

“Hmm. Say, did that BMS has a hobby?'
The head nurse picked up the chart, turned to the special section created by Pinkus, called 'Hobbies," and said, 'Nope. No hobby.'
'There,' said Pinkus. 'See? No hobby. He didn't have a hobby, do you understand? Do you have a hobby, Roy?'
With some alarm I realized that I did not, and said so.
'You should have at least one.”
― Samuel Shem, quote from The House of God

“But gomers are not just dear old people,” said Fats. “Gomers are human beings who have lost what goes into being human beings. They want to die, and we will not let them. We’re cruel to the gomers, by saving them, and they’re cruel to us, by fighting tooth and nail against our trying to save them. They hurt us, we hurt them.”
― Samuel Shem, quote from The House of God

“I’ve been drunk while swimming in the river, at noon the temperature of water, air, and body all the same, so that I can’t tell where body ends and water begins and it’s a melding of the universe, with the river curling round our bodies, cool and warm rushes intermingling in lost patterns, filling all times and all depths.”
― Samuel Shem, quote from The House of God

“To look forward to whatever flowed through the doors. To save a life? Two lives? I felt proud. The burden of treating the intractable, untreatable, unplaceable, unwanted, had been replaced by the fantasy of being a real doctor, dealing with real disease.”
― Samuel Shem, quote from The House of God

“Sometimes, drunk, I ruminate on the state of my liver, and think of all the cirrhotics I have watched turn yellow and die. They either bleed out, raving, coughing up and drowning in blood from ruptured esophageal veins, or, in coma, they slip away, slip blissfully away down the yellow-brick ammonia-scented road to oblivion.”
― Samuel Shem, quote from The House of God

“The thing is," said Gilheeny, "is that we live in constant fear of our lives. It makes the blood pressure elevate like an Arabian geyser, and the tension headaches we get would knock the balls off a bull with the twist in the maxillary sinuses themselves.”
― Samuel Shem, quote from The House of God

“when Mrs. Risenshein arrested and I was surprised to hear myself cursing under my breath as I resuscitated her, “I wish she would die so I could just go to sleep,” and I was shocked when I realized that I’d just wished a human being dead so I could go to sleep. Animal. Eat”
― Samuel Shem, quote from The House of God

“Just remember, though—your freedom means my freedom too.”
― Samuel Shem, quote from The House of God

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Popular quotes

“There is often a defining experience that marks any significant change in the course of a person’s life.”
― John Irving, quote from The Fourth Hand

“PATRICK HENRY HIGH SCHOOL  Department of Social Studies   SPECIAL NOTICE to all students Course 410    (elective senior seminar) Advanced Survival, instr. Dr. Matson, 1712-A MWF   1. There will be no class Friday the 14th. 2. Twenty-Four Hour Notice is hereby given of final examination in Solo Survival. Students will present themselves for physical check at 0900 Saturday in the dispensary of Templeton Gate and will start passing through the gate at 1000, using three-minute intervals by lot. 3. TEST CONDITIONS: a) ANY planet, ANY climate, ANY terrain; b) NO rules, ALL weapons, ANY equipment; c) TEAMING IS PERMITTED but teams will not be allowed to pass through the gate in company; d) TEST DURATION is not less than forty-eight hours, not more than ten days. 4. Dr. Matson will be available for advice and consultation until 1700 Friday. 5. Test may be postponed only on recommendation of examining physician, but any student may withdraw from the course without administrative penalty up until 1000 Saturday. 6. Good luck and long life to you all!   (s) B. P. Matson, Sc.D.    Approved: J. R. Roerich, for the Board”
― Robert A. Heinlein, quote from Tunnel in the Sky

“I have found in the past that what passes for coincidence is usually life’s way of telling you that you’re not paying enough attention.”
― John Connolly, quote from The White Road

“Bird didn’t move.
Shari and Greg, running side by side at full speed, reached him together.
“Bird?” Shari knelt down beside him. “Bird?”
Bird opened one eye. “Gotcha,” he said quietly. The weird half-smile formed on his face, and he exploded in high-pitched laughter.
It took Shari and Greg a while to react. They both stood open-mouthed, gaping at their laughing friend.
Then, his heart beginning to slow to normal, Greg reached down, grabbed Bird with both hands, and pulled him roughly to his feet.
“I’ll hold him while you hit him,” Greg offered, holding Bird from behind.”
― R.L. Stine, quote from Say Cheese and Die!

“Later, following the funeral, he took all the family’s horses, including his own, up into one of the mountain ravines and shot them.”
― David McCullough, quote from The Path Between the Seas: The Creation of the Panama Canal, 1870-1914

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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.