{"author":"Abraham Verghese","author_id":"Abraham+Verghese","total_quotes":56,"quotes":[{"text":"It was all I had, all I've ever had, the only currency, the only proof that I was alive. Memory.' p 380.","author":"Abraham Verghese","tags":["storytelling"],"id":4319,"author_id":"Abraham+Verghese"},{"text":"My father, for whose skills as a surgeon I have the deepest respect, says, 'The operation with the best outcome is the one you decide not to do.' Knowing when not to operate, knowing when I am in over my head, knowing when to call for the assistance of a surgeon of my father's caliber--that kind of talent, that kind of 'brilliance,' goes unheralded.","author":"Abraham Verghese","tags":["doctors","healing","medicine","surgeon"],"id":6251,"author_id":"Abraham+Verghese"},{"text":"Children were the foot wedged in the closing door, the glimmer of hope that in reincarnation there would be some house to go to, even if one came back as a dog, or a mouse, or flea that lived on the bodies of men. If...There was a raising of the dead, then a child would be sure to see that its parents were awakened.","author":"Abraham Verghese","tags":["children"],"id":6353,"author_id":"Abraham+Verghese"},{"text":"God will judge us by what we did to relieve the suffering of our fellow human beings. I don't think God cares what doctrine we embrace.","author":"Abraham Verghese","tags":["belief","god","humanity"],"id":20636,"author_id":"Abraham+Verghese"},{"text":"Years later, when Idi Amin said and did outrageous things, I understood that his motivation was to rattle the good people of Greenwich mean time, have them raise their heads from their tea and scones, and say, Oh yes. Africa. For a fleeting moment they'd have the same awareness of us that we had of them.","author":"Abraham Verghese","tags":["equality"],"id":26136,"author_id":"Abraham+Verghese"},{"text":"No blade can puncture the human heart like the well-chosen words of a spiteful son.","author":"Abraham Verghese","tags":["parenting"],"id":42227,"author_id":"Abraham+Verghese"},{"text":"The bottom line: health care reform is about the patient, not about the physician.","author":"Abraham Verghese","tags":["physician","care","patient "],"id":73268,"author_id":"Abraham+Verghese"},{"text":"A man is only as rich as the number of children he fathers. After all, what else do we leave behind in this world...","author":"Abraham Verghese","tags":["children"],"id":82798,"author_id":"Abraham+Verghese"},{"text":"Life is full of signs. The trick is to know how to read them. Ghosh called this heuristics, a method for solving a problem for which no formula exists.","author":"Abraham Verghese","tags":["life","problems","solutions"],"id":86033,"author_id":"Abraham+Verghese"},{"text":"Rituals, anthropologists will tell us, are about transformation. The rituals we use for marriage, baptism or inaugurating a president are as elaborate as they are because we associate the ritual with a major life passage, the crossing of a critical threshold, or in other words, with transformation.","author":"Abraham Verghese","tags":["life","transformation","words "],"id":102976,"author_id":"Abraham+Verghese"}],"pagination":{"page":1,"page_size":10,"total":56,"pages":6,"next":"?page=2\u0026page_size=10"}}