Quotes from Henry Marsh

Patients become objects of fear as well as of sympathy. It is much easier to feel compassion for other people if you are not responsible for what happens to them

Blood flashes through the brain in a matter of seconds, one quarter of all the blood from the heart, darkening as the brain takes the oxygen out of it. Thinking, perceiving and feeling, and the control of our bodies, most of it unconscious, are energy-intensive processes fuelled by oxygen.

I am starting all over again, I said to myself once more, but am running out of time.

ANGOR ANIMI n. the sense of being in the act of dying, differing from the fear of death or the desire for death.

My wife and I spent the next few weeks in that strange world one enters when you fear for your child's life – the outside world, the real world, becomes a ghost world, and the people in it remote and indistinct. The only reality is intense fear, a fear driven by helpless, overwhelming love.

My subsequent life as a neurosurgeon was to teach me that the distinction between physical and psychological illness is false – at least, that illnesses of the mind are no less real than those of the body, and no less deserving of our help.

No estábamos angustiados, pues los tres sabíamos que iba a morir, pero supongo que lo que sentíamos era sencillamente un amor intenso, un amor sin segundas intenciones, sin la vanidad y el interés de los que tan a menudo es expresión ese sentimiento.

The humourless men seated round the table before me were part of the great industry of personal injury compensation, with its army of suave and accomplished lawyers and assured expert witnesses, rooting in a great trough of insurance premiums.

My family were playing out an age-old scene that I suppose is rarely seen now in the modern world, where we die in impersonal hospitals or hospices, cared for by caring professionals, whose caring expressions (just like mine at work) will disappear off their faces as soon as they turn away, like the smiles of hotel receptionists.

wish I were a sea squirt, If life became a strain, I'd veg out on the nearest rock And reabsorb my brain.

Our fear of death is deeply ingrained. It has been said that our knowledge of our mortality is what distinguishes us from other animals, and is the motive force behind almost all human action and achievement.

I wish I were a sea squirt, If life became a strain, I'd veg out on the nearest rock And reabsorb my brain.

Përpjekjet për vetëvrasje shihen shpesh, nga stafi i spitalit, me përbuzje e mospërfillje – dështim si në jetë dhe në vdekje dhe si mjete të fatkeqësisë vetjake

Pacientët nuk kanë zgjedhje tjetër, veçse të na besojnë. Dhe është detyra jonë të punojmë fort për të merituar atë besim që pacientët na japin dhe duhet të rezistojmë dhe të luftojmë fort

Në shtratin e vdekjes, shumë prej nesh do të mbajmë ende një fije shprese në një qoshk të mendjes dhe vetëm në çastin e fundit do kthejmë kokën mënjanë dhe do japim shpirt...

Një mjek i mirë duhet t'u flasë të dy qenieve kontradiktore brenda pacientit që po vdes – pjesës që e di që po vdes dhe asaj që shpreson se do të rrojë ende.

Më pëlqen të operuarit, prandaj u bëra kirurg, por jam i përgjegjshëm se truri nuk shërohet njësoj si kockat dhe muskujt

do not understand, and perhaps never will. As the evolutionary biologist J. B. S. Haldane observed, it's not just that the universe might be stranger than we think, but that it might be stranger than we can think.

Pacientët përpiqen ta mposhtin frikën e tyre duke i veshur kirurgut fuqi mbinatyrore!

It was miserable work, with little reward, and I learned much about the limitations of human kindness, and in particular my own.

I will be missed after my death, but I will miss nothing.