Quotes About Care

Alexander McCall Smith

You had to look after other people because if you did not, then the world was a cold and lonely place, a place where, if you stumbled, there would be no hand to pull you to your feet.

was particularly hard for women now, when there were so many children left without

I think this bandage is not needed," said Mma Ramotswe, bending down to remove it. "Hospitals feel they have to put a bandage on anybody who goes there—just in case. Sometimes you get a bandage even if you are just visiting somebody.

Like so many women, her life seemed to be all about the needs of others. Auden had said something about that, she reminded herself—something witty. We are here on this earth to help others, but he had no idea why the others were here.

Love of what you do is unmistakable in the care with which you do it

Whom, then, to love? Whom to believe? Who is the only one that won't betray us? Who measures all deeds, all speeches obligingly by our own foot rule? Who does not sow slander about us? Who coddles us with care? To whom our vice is not so bad? Who never bores us? Unlike a futile phantom-seeker who wastes effort in vain- love your own self, my honorworthy reader. A worthy object! Nothing more amiable surely exists.

She treated Vanessa and me as if we were visiting budgerigars that needed to be fed and then put somewhere dark for the night.

Medicine asked something extraordinary of nurses: to forge intimate connections with another person for hours, weeks, or months, to care thoroughly and holistically—and then to let that individual suddenly go, often never to be heard from again.

I love my job, and I hope people find comfort in knowing there are still people out there who love what they do." —a New York acute care nurse

Simpson calculated that if an inpatient nurse sees an average of even just four patients during a twelve-hour shift, in twenty years she will care for more than 11,000 patients and families. A clinic nurse who sees ten patients per shift will care for nearly 43,000 patients.

nursing was a deeply interpersonal profession in which people had to depend on others—doctors, techs, fellow nurses—to do their job well.

Nurses want patients to remember that from the moment patients enter a hospital to the moment they leave, nurses—not doctors—will be more intimately involved with their care.

It is the nurse who holds the hand of a patient without a family, who talks to them while they take their last breaths, who aches for them while they die alone. It is the nurse who cleans the patient's body, wipes away the blood and fluids, and closes his eyes. It is the nurse who says good-bye to the patient for the last time," she said.

We rely on nurses to be our healers, our heroes, to comfort us, to soothe our hurts and salve our psyches. But how often do we pause to wonder who takes care of the nurses?

Rather than addressing the nurses being spread too thin to provide care that is good enough, they assume the nurses aren't coddling the patients adequately enough." What annoys nurses is that the concept of "patient experience" has morphed patients into customers and nurses into "rank and file" automatons. Some hospital job postings advertise that they are looking for nurses with "good customer service skills" as their

Be kind, aim for my heart.

Everyone knows that God protects drunkards and lovers.

If you nurture Life, Life will nurture you.

An ironic, snarky, or perky tone can be used to avoid true intimacy with readers. Literary writing isn't necessarily intimate, either. A life "closely observed" doesn't mean we'll care about it.

To the wise, a prick on the finger avoids a hole in the heart.

The odd thing, my dear," said her father, "is that once one has ceased trying to protect self, one finds one's self in a very comfortable position." "Where?" asked Kale "In Wulder's care.

I wish you'd stop being so good to me, Cap'n.

You are the best of us. We are the best of you. What becomes of us will, inevitably, become of you. That is why you should care. That is why I write. I end this chapter, then, with broken silence, broken vows, broken trust. Our secrets are yours now; I pray you use them well.