A man is only as rich as the number of children he fathers. After all, what else do we leave behind in this world...

— Abraham Verghese

[American ambulance crews] salvaged people we'd never see in Missing, because no one would have tied to bring them to a hospital. Judging someone to be beyond help never crossed the minds of police, firemen, or doctors here.

— Abraham Verghese

...a world where a sparrow's fate and that of a man can be decided in the blink of a cat's eye, such is the true measure of time.

— Abraham Verghese

Being the firstborn gives you great patience.

— Abraham Verghese

Be ready. Be seated. See what courage sounds like. See how brave it is to reveal yourself in this way. But above all, see what it is to still live, to profoundly influence the lives of others after you are gone, by your words.

— Abraham Verghese

Certainly when I got to medical school, I had role models of the kind of physicians I wanted to be. I had an uncle who, looking back, was probably not the most-educated physician around, but he carried it off so well.

— Abraham Verghese

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.

— Abraham Verghese

Don't leave the instrument sitting in its case, my son. Play! Leave no part of your instrument unexplored. Why settle for 'Three Blind Mice' when you can play the 'Gloria'?

— Abraham Verghese

Do they LI

— Abraham Verghese

Doubt is a first cousin to faith, Ghost. To have faith, you have to suspend your disbelief.

— Abraham Verghese