Chronic Disease Quotes

“It's like you don't get that she's not gone yet, like you think her time left isn't meaningful anymore. You're acting like a selfish child.”
― Lisa Genova, Still Alice

“I miss myself."
"I miss you too, Ali, so much."
"I never planned to get like this."
"I know.”
― Lisa Genova, Still Alice

“Provoked, she wanted to scream into the phone that she didn't need a babysitter, and she could manage just fine alone in her own house. She breathed instead”
― Lisa Genova, Still Alice

“She could always walk somewhere without him. Of course this somewhere had to be somewhere "safe." She could walk to her office. But she didn't want to go to her office. She felt bored, ignored, and alienated in her office. She felt ridiculous there. She didn't belong there anymore. In all the expansive grandeur that was Harvard, there wasn't room there for a cognitive psychology professor with a broken cognitive psyche.”
― Lisa Genova, Still Alice

“They were politely kind to her when they ran into her, but they didn't run into her very often this was largely because of their busy schedules and Alice's now rather empty one. But a not so insignificant reason was because they chose not to. Facing her meant facing her mental frailty and the unavoidable thought that, in the blink of an eye, it could happen to them. Facing her was scary. So for the most part, except for meetings and seminars, they didn't.”
― Lisa Genova, Still Alice

“It's okay that I got sick, I suddenly realize. If Lyme hadn't taken me down so radically, I wouldn't have learned about stillness. I would not have discovered my enormous capacity to endure. I would have not have embraced this deeply contemplative place within my own being.”
― Katina Makris, Out of the Woods: Healing from Lyme Disease for Body, Mind, and Spirit

“We can arrange better expectations and better circumstances beginning with the fact that we need not be who we are now; we can be better.”
― Charles C Harpe, Naturvore Power

“It is important for Americans to recognize that, despite all of the fancy gimmicks and perceived power of modern medicine, the largest explosion of preventable, chronic diseases ever in the history of mankind has occurred as a direct result of modern medicine and scientific reductionism. Modern medicine is not an antidote for the incredible harms caused by the modern food industry, but it is an effective distraction.”
― Charles C Harpe, Naturvore Power

“Cats have nine lives. Sons do not. There were times when I worried. Worried a lot.”
― Ken Cruickshank

“Colin had just accomplished the impossible. He had broken down the walls around my heart. The walls I had been building far before my illnesses but had grown even sturdier since my diagnosis. And for the first time, it felt like I'd been set free.”
― Brooke Gilbert, The Paris Soulmate

“I had fought for this moment. I had fought for my life, what health I had, the ability to live my life, and the ability to love. And he was worth every moment I had fought so hard for. I never could have imagined what I was truly fighting so desperately for. But there he sat.”
― Brooke Gilbert, The Paris Soulmate

“What hope was there then if you could outrun the disease but not the hate and stigma?”
― Amanda Skenandore, The Second Life of Mirielle West

“Social media would have us believe we can cure ourselves of all kinds of diseases but I think this is unfair at best and dangerous at its worst. It can make you feel like you’ve failed if you don’t get better. But the truth is, you can only make the best of your own situation. There are no cure all easy answers sadly.”
― Jackie Kearney