Quotes from Bernie Siegel

I know patients who bring a dozen roses to the doctor's office. And, boy, the next visit, nobody forgets that. You come in and hey - 'Here's the lady who brought the roses' vs. 'Here's the lung cancer.'

What I try to get physically healthy people to understand is that they're going to die someday. There is no way out. And dying isn't failure, but not living is, so make use of your time. Don't keeping waiting.

One of the best ways to change is to act as if you are the person you want to become. When you behave as if you are a different person, you change on a very basic level - even your physiology changes. When actors and actresses perform, their body chemistry is altered by the roles they play.

Part of my evolution has been to learn how painful most people's childhoods are. They grow up not liking themselves, not loving themselves. Ask people if they were lovable the minute they were born, and watch them sit back and have to think about it. One lady said, 'I suppose so.' That's painful.

If you watch how nature deals with adversity continually renewing itself you can't help but learn.

Love and peace of mind do protect us. They allow us to overcome the problems that life hands us. They teach us to survive... to live now... to have the courage to confront each day.

Having pets in the house helps everyone have a reverence for life.

I had patients who didn't die because they had too many pets to try to find homes for. It's why women live longer than men with the same health problems.

Compliments are the helium that fills everyone's balloon; they elevate the person receiving them so he or she can fly over life's troubles and land safely on the other side.

Doctors are busy playing God when so few of us have the qualifications. And besides, the job is taken.

The spiritual message is we lose our lives in pleasing others; if you're the good child who pleases Mommy and Daddy but internalizes anger, you're setting yourself up for disease.

For me, consciousness is non-local, not limited to the body, and can exist independent of it.

There is survival behavior, and doctors need to learn from patients who do not die when they are supposed to, instead of saying, 'You're doing very well, so keep doing whatever you are doing.' They should be asking what their patient is doing and pass the information to other patients.

The thing you see in survivors is that they express feelings - I won't say some of the things they tell their doctors, when doctors tell them they're going to die in six months. Boy, do they let the doctor know how they feel about that statement.

When your heart speaks to you about what you need to do to sustain life on this planet, listen to it, make a difference, and be an inspiration for generations to come. Be inspired by people like Gandhi, Mother Teresa, Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King, Christopher Reeve, Albert Schweitzer, Helen Keller, and many others.

Inspiration is the greatest gift because it opens your life to many new possibilities. Each day becomes more meaningful, and your life is enhanced when your actions are guided by what inspires you.

Parents, teachers, clergy and physicians change lives with their words. It is hypnotic for a child or patient to hear an authority figure's words. As I am always sharing, 'wordswordswords' can become 'swordswordswords,' and we can kill or cure with either words or swords.

One cannot get through life without pain...What we can do is choose how to use the pain life presents to us.

It's not about curing the disease, but healing the life; then the physical benefits come.

Live by your experience and do not let limited beliefs alter your life experience.

Being a survivor doesn't mean being strong - it's telling people when you need a meal or a ride, company, whatever. It's paying attention to heart wisdom, feelings, not living a role, but having a unique, authentic life, having something to contribute, finding time to love and laugh. All these things are qualities of survivors.

When my body gets to the point where I can no longer function or feel gratitude, then I'll leave it and become grateful again. But until then, I will appreciate what I have and not whine about what I don't have. I will feel blessed by life and the opportunity to help others see that they are blessed, too.

Mind-body medicine should not be an 'alternative,' nor should complementary and integrative medicine be something doctors are not exposed to during their training.

I was called a 'CD' by a suicidal teenager, who is alive today because I became her 'Chosen Dad,' who loved her. We all have the potential to re-parent ourselves and others.