Abraham Verghese : (4)

" 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. " - Abraham Verghese

" Lets take away the incentives to do ‘to’ patients and instead create incentives to do ‘for’ patients, to be ‘with’ patients. We don’t need to do comparative effectiveness trials to see if that works; we can just ask patients. " - Abraham Verghese

" We’re now able to show that the words of comfort trigger biological reactions which are the very things that you want, and you can use drugs to get there, or you can use words of comfort to get there, which would make your drugs so much more effective. " - Abraham Verghese

" Literature is a beautiful way of keeping the imagination alive, of visiting worlds you would never have time to in your day-to-day life. It keeps you abreast of a wider spectrum of human activities. " - Abraham Verghese