Samuel Shem

Only write if you can't not.

It ain't easy to do nothing, now that society is telling everyone that their body is fundamentally flawed and about to self-destruct. People are afraid they're on the verge of death all the time

There is no body cavity that cannot be reached with a number fourteen needle and a good strong arm.

To do nothing for the gomers was to do something, and the more conscientiously I did nothing the better they got.

The patient is the one with the disease

A BMS hears hoofbeats outside his window, the first thing he thinks of is a zebra

Gomers are human beings who have lost what goes into being human beings. They want to die, and we will not let them.

At a cardiac arrest, the first procedure is to take your own pulse

We were putting into these gomers our fear of death, but who knew if they feared death? Perhaps they welcomed death like a dear long-lost cousin, grown old but still known, coming to visit, relieving the loneliness, the failing of the senses, the fury of the half-blind looking into the mirror and not recognizing who is looking back, a dear friend, a dear reliever, a healer who would be with them for an eternity, the same eternity as the long ago, before birth.

Basch: So why don't you ask her out?The Runt: I'm scared she wouldn't like me and say no.-So what? What have you got to lose?-The possibility -if she says no- that she might have said yes. Whatever I do, I don't want to lose that possibility.