Quotes About Compassion

God only knows why miscarriages happen. God only knows—but doesn't choose to explain.

Odat Kochamma is the tonic Parambil needs. The old lady is ceaseless in her toil. Within a week, Big Ammachi comes to rely on being fussed at, told to sit down and rest, or made to laugh so hard she has to pee.

Well, Koshy Saar may not believe in God, but it's a good thing that God believes in that old man. Why else did he send him into your life?

Please understand. This happened before her birth. She was born this way. Nothing you or anyone else did caused it. Understand? This isn't your fault. In Jeremiah, doesn't God say, 'Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee; and before thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee'?" "He does!" she says, shocked to hear a Bible verse from this worldly man.

What treatment in an emergency is administered by ear? Words of comfort.

When they turn in, he says, "It must be so hard to see such suffering every day." He shudders. "I couldn't do it. Only luck and the grace of God keeps us free of such afflictions. We're so blessed, aren't we?

she offered her arms, her hands, her kisses . . . and her willingness to be wounded.

Forgive me," she says now. "For what?" "For everything. Sometimes we can wound each other in ways we don't intend.

you forgave me long ago. Why would I not do the same? So, whatever it is, I forgive you." She rises, touches his cheek, kisses him on his forehead

We don't have anything to offer, but we began to realize that we had to offer the very things that have made the physician-patient relationship so hallowed for so many reasons, and that is ourselves, our interest, our presence. It may sound strange to say this, but I think a healing can take place even when the disease is incurable and they go on to die. That's a healing that takes place in both the patient and the physician.

God will judge us by what we did to relieve the suffering of our fellow human beings. I don't think God cares what doctrine we embrace.

question," not push for the answer.

Abraham Verghese

there was never anything healing one could say. One could only be. The best friends in such times were those who had no agenda other than to be present, to offer themselves

Thomas Christian ladies attend his clinic as faithfully as they attend church, presenting him their aches and pains that are often surrogates for chronic marital woes—he offers placebos and sympathetic homilies, such as "Mullu elayil vinallum, ela mullel vinallum, elakka nashttam." Whether the thorn falls on the leaf, or the leaf falls on the thorn, the leaf suffers. "Aah, aah, you're so right, doctor. My husband is a thorn only, what to do?

If you expect the blessings of God, be kind to His people.

Do not look down upon any Muslim, for even the most inferior believer is great in the eyes of God.

Mirad had asked for peace for his birthday. Imagine, a boy of thirteen who asks for peace as a birthday present. When I heard that I cried.

All I've been working on is napping, and maybe being kinder to others, to myself.

Caring for each other is a form of radical survival that we don't always take into account.

You say you love the world, so love the world.

It is what we do in order to care for things, make them ourselves, our elders, our beloveds, our unborn. But perhaps that is a lazy kind of love. Why can't I just love the flower for being a flower? How many flowers have I yanked to puppet as if it was easy for the world to make flowers?

Mercy is not frozen in time, but flits about frantically, unsure where to land.

crossed-legged with my friend named Echo who taught me how to amplify the strange sound the frogs made by cupping my ears. I need to hold this close within me, when today's news is full of dead children, their faces opening their mouths for air that will not come. Once I was a child too and my friend and I sat for maybe an hour, eyes adjusting to the night sky, cupping and uncapping our ears to hear the song the tenderest animals made.