Noah Gordon > Quotes

“I think of the separation between life and Paradise as a river,” Mirdin said. “If there are many bridges that cross the river, should it be of great concern to God which bridge the traveler chooses?”
― Noah Gordon, The Physician

“And though you study medicine for a score of lifetimes, there will come to you people whose illnesses are mysteries, for the anguish of which you speak is part and parcel of the profession of healing and must be lived with.”
― Noah Gordon, The Physician

“Life is glorious, but it can be counted on to be cruel.”
― Noah Gordon, The Last Jew

“It is just as easy to bring death to man, and I’ve done so. It’s harder to keep hold of life, harder still to maintain a grasp on health. Those are the tasks to which we must keep our minds.”
― Noah Gordon, The Physician

“To rise at six, dine at ten, Sup at five, to bed at ten, Makes man live ten times ten.”
― Noah Gordon, The Physician

“Medicine is like the slow raising of masonry,” Rob said. “We are fortunate, in a lifetime, to be able to lay a single brick. If we can explain the disease, someone yet unborn may devise a cure.”
― Noah Gordon, The Physician

“If you desire it, you must punish yourself for the sake of learning, seek every advantage in keeping up with the other clerks and in excelling them. You must study with the fervor of the blessed or the cursed.”
― Noah Gordon, The Physician

“Mankind is close to savagery and must live by rules. If not, we would sink into our own animal nature and perish.”
― Noah Gordon, The Physician

“Why is it, Master,” he asked bitterly, “that despite all a physician is able to do, he is as a leaf before the wind, and the real power lies only with Allah?”
― Noah Gordon, The Physician

“To hold a human soul in the palm of your hand like a pebble. To feel somebody slip away, yet by your actions to bring her back! Not even a king had such power.”
― Noah Gordon, The Physician

“—Lo que me atormenta es mi propia ignorancia y mi incapacidad. En Ispahán aprenderé a ayudar a aquellos por los que ahora no puedo hacer nada.”
― Noah Gordon, El médico

“You must never forget that dealing with a monarch is not like dealing with an ordinary man,” Ibn Sina said. “A king is not like you or me. He drops a hand carelessly and someone like us is put to death. Or he wiggles a finger and someone is allowed to live. That is absolute power, and no man born of woman is able to resist it. It drives even the best of monarchs slightly mad.”
― Noah Gordon, The Physician

“young ones with respect for their digestions. “Well, you can’t feed it to them anymore. It’s gone way too high.” Her mouth became a straight line. “Not so high. It’s well-salted; we’ve eaten worse. If it’s that bad, the others would be sick and so would I.” He knew enough about homesteaders of whatever religious persuasion to hear what she was really saying: the sausage was all there was, they ate spoiled sausage or nothing. He nodded and walked back to his own seat. His food was in a cornucopia twisted from sheets of the Cincinnati Commercial, three thick sandwiches of lean beef on dark German bread, a strawberry-jam tart, and two apples that he juggled for a few moments to make the children laugh. When he gave the food to Mrs. Sperber, she opened her mouth as though to protest, but then she closed it. A homesteader’s wife needs a healthy dose of realism. “We are obliged to thee, friend,” she said. Across the aisle, the blond woman watched,”
― Noah Gordon, Shaman

“¿Significaba que, si los judíos estuvieran en el poder en lugar de la Iglesia, ellos también utilizarían a Dios para destruir a los no creyentes? ¿Era inevitable que el poder religioso absoluto llevara aparejada una absoluta crueldad? «Ha-Rakhaman, Padre Nuestro del Cielo, único Dios de todos, ¿por qué permites que se cometan tantas matanzas en tu Nombre?»”
― Noah Gordon, El Último Judío

“Pero no debes temer que el aprendizaje se convierta en una parte de ti mismo, de modo que te resulte tan natural como respirar. Tienes que expandir tu mente lo suficiente como para que asimile todo”
― Noah Gordon, El médico

“The four elements: earth, water, fire and air; the qualities recognized by touch: cold, heat, dryness, and moisture; the temperaments: sanguineous, phlegmatic, choleric, and saturnine; the faculties: natural, animal, and vital.”
― Noah Gordon, The Physician

“The study of medicine was, in its own way, something to love in place of a missing family.”
― Noah Gordon, The Physician

“Esta Pérsia parecia tentar fazer de cada homem um cornudo, à vez”
― Noah Gordon, The Physician

“Have you considered,” Rob said slowly, “how each faith claims that it alone has God’s heart and ear? We, you, and Islam—each vows it is the true religion. Can it be that we’re all three wrong?” “Perhaps we’re all three right,” Mirdin said.”
― Noah Gordon, The Physician

“As substâncias eram imprevisíveis e difíceis de controlar, mas por vezes os cirurgiões conseguiam operar sem os tremores convulsivos e os gemidos e gritos de dor. As receitas pareciam-lhe mais magia do que medicina”
― Noah Gordon, The Physician

“I tell myself that some might be saved if I knew more.”
― Noah Gordon, The Physician

“Una palabra serena a un hombre sensato vale más que un año de súplicas a un tonto.”
― Noah Gordon, El Médico

“Despite his failings she couldn’t shun Nathanael, she was too fond of fleshly delight. He kept her belly large, pumping her full of child as soon as she was emptied, and whenever she was nearing term he avoided their home. Their life conformed almost exactly to the dire predictions made by her father when, with Rob J. already in her, she had married the young carpenter who had come to Watford to help build their neighbor’s barn. Her father had blamed her schooling, saying that education filled a woman with lascivious folly”
― Noah Gordon, The Physician

“experienced,” Rob J. said.”
― Noah Gordon, Shaman

“Por vezes Mary falava e Fara escutava uma efusão de gaélico que não compreendia; por vezes era Fara que falava a Língua para uma Mary completamente em branco.
Curiosamente, as palavras não eram importantes. O que importava era a representação das emoções nas expressões do rosto, a expressividade das mãos, o que a voz transmitia, segredos que os olhos contavam”
― Noah Gordon, The Physician

“The difficulty in life is the choice.”
― Noah Gordon, The Cole Trilogy: The Physician, Shaman, and Matters of Choice

“La humanidad está muy cerca del salvajismo y tiene que regirse por normas. De lo contrario, nos hundiríamos en nuestra propia naturaleza animal y pereceríamos.”
― Noah Gordon, The Physician

“God is in each of us. But we must give Him permission to come out.”
― Noah Gordon, Matters of Choice

“Vejo a separação entre a vida e o paraíso como um rio. Se muitas pontes cruzam o rio, será que Deus se importa qual delas escolheremos?”
― Noah Gordon, The Physician

“Lo que habían intercambiado no era amor; Rob lo sabía. Sin embargo, había sido tan buen sustito del amor”
― Noah Gordon