The difficulty with becoming a patient is that as soon as you get horizontal, part of your being yearns, not for a doctor, but for a medicine man.
Illness Quotes
I cannot believe that my illness is natural. I suspect Satan, and therefore I am the more inclined to take it lightly.
A man’s illness is his private territory and, no matter how much he loves you and how close you are, you stay an outsider. You are healthy.
Most illnesses tend to kill some people and to spare others, “and if you are one of the lucky ones and have also had at hand a steady knowledgeable doctor, you become convinced that the doctor saved you.” (The quote is from Lewis Thomas.) It is just this element of post hoc, propter hoc, I […]
I reckon being ill as one of the great pleasures of life, provided one is not too ill and is not obliged to work till one is better.
The moral order of the world runs aground on hay fever. Of what use is it? Why was it invented? Cancer and hydrophobia, at least, may be defended on the ground that they kill. Killing may have some benign purpose, some esoteric significance, some cosmic use. But hay fever never kills; it merely tortures. No […]
I can’t explain myself, I’m afraid, because I’m not myself, you see.
Falling ill is not something that happens to us, it is a choice we make as a result of things happening to us.
Don’t deny the diagnosis; try to defy the verdict.
Apprehension, uncertainty, waiting, expectation, fear of surprise, do a patient more harm than any exertion.
