Quotes About Patience

The end was nigh. She had been waiting for her father to die so her life could begin, but as we could all have told her it doesn't work like that. She knew that anyway. Really.

ODTAA syndrome: the syndrome of One Damn Thing After Another.

The calm and wisdom of old age are achieved over time.

If we shift as we age toward appreciating everyday pleasures and relationships rather than toward achieving, having, and getting, and if we find this more fulfilling, then why do we take so long to do it? Why do we wait until we're old? The common view was that these lessons are hard to learn. Living is a kind of skill. The calm and wisdom of old age are achieved over time.

We always hope for the easy fix: the one simple change that will erase a problem in a stroke. But few things in life work this way. Instead, success requires making a hundred small steps go right - one after the other, no slipups, no goofs, everyone pitching in. We are used to thinking of doctoring as a solitary, intellectual task. But making the medicine go right is less often like making a difficult diagnosis than like making sure everyone washes their hands.

before I could get the words out of my mouth.

Having given up totally on making it to anything else that day, I spotted a

I was impressed that he had learned to tolerate the winters.

He decided to put off the follow-up appointment. It was ultimately a year before he returned to see Benzel. A repeat MRI showed the tumor had enlarged.

It is all I can do not to take over. But she cannot learn without doing, I tell myself. I decide to let her have one more try.

It took her several minutes alone with her father before she could sign.

Minutes passed in silence.

and he couldn't endure the prospect of a longer operation.

there was nothing for them to do but wait.

At most, a doctor might say, "I'm sorry that things didn't go as well as we had hoped.

waiting for the sick feeling to pass

She just had to hang in there, she told herself

I try not to think too far ahead. I don't think about next year. It's too depressing. I just think about next week.

We always hope for the easy fix: the one simple change that will erase a problem in a stroke. But few things in life work this way. Instead, success requires making a hundred small steps go right--one after the other, no slipups, no goofs, everyone pitching in. We are used to thinking of doctoring as a solitary, intellectual task. But making medicine go right is less often like making a difficult diagnosis than like making sure everyone washes their hands.

Several months passed before I saw Vince Caselli again.

He said he was well, and I did not press for details.

You have a cough that won't go away—and then? It's not science you call upon but a doctor. A doctor with good days and bad days. A doctor with a weird laugh and a bad haircut. A doctor with three other patients to see and, inevitably, gaps in what he knows and skills he's still trying to learn.

Here? I asked with my eyes, not wanting to undermine my patient's confidence any further.

Some women wait for themselves around the next corner and call the empty spot peace but the opposite of living is only not living and the stars do not care.