Terminal Illness Quotes

There's probably no experience more alienating than fame, other than a terminal illness, where you actually find yourself in a situation that nobody around you can relate to. ~ Diablo Cody

Quentin flicked a quick glance back at her again. Poppy. This girl had the wrong name. She should have been Rose. Great face, lots of prickles. ~ Ros Baxter

I had, in my legal practice, often encountered really shocking examples of the devastating impact of the costs of long-term medical care on meagre incomes. And, just before I was elected, I had my own personal experience in paying very considerable bills for my mother's terminal illness. ~ Judy LaMarsh

That makes three suicides without logical explanations. Now, for people like Fitzhugh and the senator, with their kind of financial base, there's counseling at the snap of a finger. Or in cases of terminal illness - physical or emotional - voluntary self-termination facilities. But they took themselves out in bloody and painful ways. ~ J.D. Robb

He shook his head at her question. Did women really think men cared about that stuff? Did he care if she did this all the time? Definitely, definitely not. He could honestly say he did not give a flying fuck whether this girl dragged guys home every other day to have her way with them for seven hours. He was just glad as hell she'd decided to do it with him. Today. And hopefully maybe again. Sometime. ~ Ros Baxter

Poppy Devine did not deserve cancer. Poppy was sweet and industrious and careful and measured and always, always did the right thing. If anyone deserved cancer it was Julia. Julia was loud and opinionated and disagreeable. Rude, some might even say. She went out with bad men, took unnecessary risks, pushed people to their limits, swore like a sailor and flipped the bird more than any female in the history of the world.
It should be her number coming up in the cancer lottery. ~ Amy Andrews

Making It in Hollywood is the most disgusting phrase in the English language. It's more disturbing than prolific serial killer and rare terminal illness. ~ Caroline Kepnes

Life is a terminal illness. ~ David Mitchell

Scarlett lived by the (thankfully) ancient medical creed: If it tastes awful and smells worse, it's probably good for you.
Julia wasn't so sure about that. She lived by the edict: If it tastes awful and smells worse, leave it the hell alone. On the other hand, if it tasted good and smelled better, you either ate it, squirted it on your neck or fucked it.
It hadn't led her wrong so far. ~ Amy Andrews

You don't have to spend much time with the elderly or those with terminal illness to see how often medicine fails the people it is supposed to help. The waning days of our lives are given over to treatments that addle our brains and sap our bodies for a sliver's chance of benefit. They are spent in institutions - nursing homes and intensive care units - where regimented, anonymous routines cut us off from all the things that matter to us in life. Our reluctance to honestly examine the experience of aging and dying has increased the harm we inflict on people and denied them the basic comforts they most need. ~ Atul Gawande

I think those who have a terminal illness and are in great pain should have the right to choose to end their own life, and those that help them should be free from prosecution. ~ Stephen Hawking

Julia had been angry most of her life. She may have grown up in wealth and privilege but she'd had to fight to be heard and seen. To be validated. To be something other than a piece to be moved around her parents' Monopoly board. Rage had given her a voice against their manipulations and the guts to walk away. But it had also become ingrained.
There were times when she'd contemplated therapy for it. Right now, she was pleased she hadn't.
If anything could kill this cancer it would be the weight of Julia's wrath. ~ Amy Andrews

Consider the lilies of the field. Look at the fuzz on a baby's ear. Read in the backyard with the sun on your face. Learn to be happy. And think of life as a terminal illness because if you do you will live it with joy and passion, as it ought to be lived. ~ Anna Quindlen

Whether we are basically healthy at the moment or have a terminal illness, none of us knows how long we have to live. Life only unfolds in moments. The healing power of mindfulness lies in living each of those moments as fully as we can, accepting it as it is as we open to what comes next - in the next moment of now. ~ Jon Kabat-Zinn

I waited for years for my infatuation to blow over, managing it like a chronic illness. But suppression only sustains and intensifies passion instead of letting it peter out into domesticity, the way the narrow glass canyons of Manhattan Venturi the winds to a pitch that rips umbrellas inside out. Kati Jo used to say she wished Lauren and I could just fuck so I'd get it out of my system, but I never wanted anything as feasible as an affair. I never imagined that Lauren might leave her husband, or entertained shameful little daydreams about his death. The only scenario I could plausibly picture that would bring us together was not Lars's death but my own. I would contract some painless terminal illness that would entitle me to ask Lauren to sit at my bedside in my last months and read to me or bring me little sandwiches. I couldn't envision any realistic way of changing this world; what I wanted was to live in a different one. I was never really a reformer, but a utopian. ~ Tim Kreider

It had seemed like a good idea at the time, a sure-fire way to impress this girl, who was as cute as hell but wound tighter than one of his father's antique clocks. ~ Ros Baxter

There is complete hope for terminal illness in the power of the Almighty God. The hands of Jesus are healing hands...the hands of Jesus are saving hands. Jesus brought peace and restoration, reconciliation, power, purpose, love, understading, purity and compatibility with him and the world we live in. we are healed through him. He mends brokenness and gives us back our lives which are stollen by the trials and suffering of this dark world. He is the light and life giving God. We ought to pray in our daily lives to receive from God, his help, upholding power and healing in the Name of Jesus Christ his one and only Son. When we ask from him...then we receive healing, relief from suffering, we stop living in fear of death. Read these books and experience the real presence of the supernatural, almighty sovereign and loving God. ~ Stellah Mupanduki

He kissed her then. Not tentative. Not polite.
This was no first-kiss kiss. It was demanding. Dirty. And it went on and on. Deep, open-mouthed, head-twisting, tongue-fucking, rock'n'roll kissing. ~ Amy Andrews

As an ex-footballer, sometimes surfer and wannabe rock star, Quentin had been fucked by cheerleaders, surfer girls and groupies, but he had never, ever been fucked like that. ~ Ros Baxter

Life, by nature, is a terminal illness. ~ Dylan Moore

It's true, I suffer a great deal
but do I suffer well? That is the question. ~ Therese De Lisieux

With terminal illness, your fate is sealed. Morally, we're more comfortable with a situation where you don't cause death, but you hasten it. We think that's a bright line. Comparing the U.S. with Switzerland, where assisted suicide is legal for patients suffering 'intolerable health problems.' ~ Arthur Caplan

Like the experience of warfare, the endurance of grave or terminal illness involves long periods of tedium and anxiety, punctuated by briefer interludes of stark terror and pain. ~ Christopher Hitchens

Tell that incurable disease "Even if you refuse to leave me alone, when I am thrown to the fires, we will be destroyed together, and what will you have gained by not leaving me alone ~ Bangambiki Habyarimana

The idea that people would be happier if they maintained a constant state of realism is a beautiful sentiment, but Taylor and Brown found just the opposite. They presented a new theory that suggested that well-being came from unrealistic views of reality. They said you reduce the stress of terminal illness or a high-pressure job or unexpected tragedy by resorting to optimism and delusion. Your wildly inaccurate self-evaluations get you through rough times and help motivate you when times are good. Indeed, later research backed up their claims, showing that people who are brutally honest with themselves are not as happy day to day as people with unrealistic assumptions about their abilities. People who take credit for the times when things go their way but who put the blame on others when they stumble or fall are generally happier people. ~ David McRaney

Letter to Myself, in Remission, from Myself, Terminal"

You'll come to hate your own poems,
read them as pretty wisps of colorful thinking,
all those images just a splash of colored oil
sloshed over a pool gone rancid. Admit it.
Atheists always scared you. And no wonder.
Those nights you switched on the fan so no one
could hear you scream into your pillow, weeping
and biting your own hands like a motherless
monkey,banded to a body that despised you,
a suit of coals with a jammed-shut zipper.
Instead of the truth, you took refuge in stories
and souls, wore the word survivor like a pink nimbus.
All the while, my dear, I waited, knowing
you'd catch up to me one day. I'm holding the black-
backed mirror to your face. Look into it. ~ Anya Krugovoy Silver

And yet people went on thinking this way, kind of in the way that someone who has just been diagnosed with a terminal illness will go on getting up and going to work every morning, not so much out of habit as because the knowledge of impending doom makes them wish to assert an identity. ~ Neal Stephenson

The burn of lifting weights, for instance, would be excruciating if it were a symptom of terminal illness. But because it is associated with health and fitness, most people find it enjoyable. ~ Sam Harris

Quentin wasn't stupid, despite living what his father called 'a lifestyle unworthy of yourself'. ~ Ros Baxter

Indian System of Medicine is not just traditional Ayurveda, unani, or yoga but also a vast field of ancient oral and family medicine traditions. Especially nadi based gut-brain axis modulation medicines are most effective for terminal illness. ~ Amit Ray

In 2008, the national Coping with Cancer project published a study showing that terminally ill cancer patients who were put on a mechanical ventilator, given electrical defibrillation or chest compressions, or admitted, near death, to intensive care had a substantially worse quality of life in their last week than those who received no such interventions. And, six months after their death, their caregivers were three times as likely to suffer major depression. Spending one's final days in an I.C.U. because of terminal illness is for most people a kind of failure. You lie on a ventilator, your every organ shutting down, your mind teetering on delirium and permanently beyond realizing that you will never leave this borrowed, fluorescent place. The end comes with no chance for you to have said goodbye or "It's O.K." or "I'm sorry" or "I love you."

People have concerns besides simply prolonging their lives. Surveys of patients with terminal illness find that their top priorities include, in addition to avoiding suffering, being with family, having the touch of others, being mentally aware, and not becoming a burden to others. Our system of technological medical care has utterly failed to meet these needs, and the cost of this failure is measured in far more than dollars. The hard question we face, then, is not how we can afford this system's expense. It is how we can build a health-care system that will actually help dying patients achieve what's most important to them ~ Atul Gawande

I did not fully understand the dread term 'terminal illness' until I saw Heathrow for myself. ~ Dennis Potter

God, thank you for waking me up this morning. I want to embrace every day, however limited my day may be, as a gift from God. I want to live this day to its fullest. I know there are things I can no longer do. I know I am facing daily limitations. But I want to focus on what I can do, not on what I cannot do. So help me God. I know this day will never be repeated. I know I cannot live it over again. Help me to live it to its fullest. ~ Ed Dobson

I arrived back home just before midnight, and Marlboro Man met me at the car. I could hear nothing but cows and crickets when I climbed out of my car and into his arms, which were strong and warm and comforting. I was a wreck--sick to my stomach and even more sick in my heart--and Marlboro Man helped me to the house, as if I were crippled by a terminal illness. I was completely beat, hardly able to finish my shower before I fell into bed with Marlboro Man, who rubbed my back as I tried with all my might to keep from throwing up, breaking down, and completely saturating my red floral pillowcase with tears. ~ Ree Drummond

Oh I bet you're sweet as under all that posh.'
And he looked at her in a way that left her in no doubt that he wasn't talking about the way she might move on the dance floor. If he mentioned honey pots she was going to pour her vodka shot over him. 'You'll never know, ~ Amy Andrews

Why this girl? Why had this girl crawled right under his skin and made an uncomfortable home there? Why did he want to make things good for her, to see her smile, to make her face
and her voice make all those interesting shapes and noises? Why did he want to stay up late with her when he knew she should be sleeping, just to hear her talk about maths and politics and the
state of the world?
This was not Quentin. Quentin did not like skinny girls. He didn't like serious girls. And he really hated bossy girls.
Quentin loved curvy, fun, uncomplicated girls; girls who laughed at his jokes and took off their bras when they danced on tables. If they wore bras at all. Yet here he was, washing up and mopping and feeling like five kinds of an arsehole over hurting the feelings of some skinny, serious, bossy girl. ~ Ros Baxter

Quentin had told Spike that inking 'percussion' across your
knuckles was kind of lame. It takes more than ten letters to make
a badass knuckle tattoo. That was the problem with drummers.
They didn't listen. But they always seemed to get laid anyway. ~ Ros Baxter

We each joked to close friends that the secret to saving a relationship is for one person to become terminally ill. Conversely, we knew that one trick to managing a terminal illness is to be deeply in love - to be vulnerable, kind, generous, grateful. ~ Paul Kalanithi

From those women I also learned that a terminal illness is less distressful when it is attributed to the natural cycle of life rather than to failure. The secret to coping with the pain of an uncertain loss, regardless of culture or personal beliefs, is to avoid feeling helpless. This is accomplished by working to change what we can and accepting what we cannot. ~ Pauline Boss

We must love the Holy Spirit who breathed his healing books through a mortal vessel for all people of all race and gender to be healed and saved from demise. We must do away with hate, discrimination, abuse, malice, dissension, fraud and all injustice. This will enable sound healing for all people and this world will be healed from terminal, chronic and rare diseases, the Lord God Almighty, will remove all natural disasters and atrocities from happening. Other than that, there is no peace and salvation in this world. ~ Stellah Mupanduki

A terminal illness forces us to make every second count, whereas the forces of boredom make us count every second. ~ Mokokoma Mokhonoana

Once and for all, people must understand that addiction is a disease. It's critical if we're going to effectively prevent and treat addiction. Accepting that addiction is an illness will transform our approach to public policy, research, insurance, and criminality; it will change how we feel about addicts, and how they feel about themselves. There's another essential reason why we must understand that addiction is an illness and not just bad behavior: We punish bad behavior. We treat illness. ~ David Sheff

Everyone wanted me to feed them that story - darkness to light, weakness to strength, broken to whole. I wanted it, too. ~ John Green

Mental illness is a very powerful thing. If it is with you it is probably going to be there until the day you die. I am trying so hard to break mine, but it is not easy. It is my toughest fight ever. ~ Frank Bruno

Illness strikes men when they are exposed to change. ~ Herodotus

If two people with no symptoms in common can both receive the same diagnosis of schizophrenia, then what is the value of that label in describing their symptoms, deciding their treatment, or predicting their outcome, and would it not be more useful simply to describe their problems as they actually are? And if schizophrenia does not exist in nature, then how can researchers possibly find its cause or correlates? If psychiatric research has made so little progress in recent decades, it is in large part because everyone has been barking up the wrong tree. It is not a question of getting a bigger and better scanner, but of going right back to the drawing board.

What's more, medical-type labels can be as harmful as they are hollow. By reducing rich, varied, and complex human experiences to nothing more than a mental disorder, they not only sideline and trivialize those experiences but also imply an underlying defect that then serves as a pseudo-explanation for the person's disturbed behaviour. This demeans and disempowers the person, who is deterred from identifying and addressing the important life problems that underlie his distress. ~ Neel Burton

I intercepted Chaol, and he informed me of your 'condition.' You'd think a man in his position wouldn't be so squeamish, especially after examining all of those corpses."

Calaena opened an eye and frowned as Dorian sat on her bed. "I'm in a state of absolute agony and I can't be bothered."

"It can't be that bad," he said, fishing a deck of cards from his jacket. "Want to play?"

"I already told you that I don't feel well."

"You look fine to me." He skillfully shuffled the deck. "Just one game."

"Don't you pay people to entertain you?"

He glowered, breaking the deck. "You should be honored by my company."

"I'd be honored if you would leave."

"For someone who relies on my good graces, you're very bold."

"Bold? I've barely begun." Lying on her side, she curled her knees to her chest.

He laughed, pocketing the deck of cards. "Your new canine companion is doing well, if you wish to know."
She moaned into her pillow. "Go away. I feel like dying."

"No fair maiden should die alone," he said, putting a hand on hers. "Shall I read to you in your final moments? What story would you like?"

She snatched her hand back. "How about the story of the idiotic prince who won't leave the assassin alone?"

"Oh! I love that story! It has such a happy ending, too - why, the assassin was really feigning her illness in order to get the prince's attention! Wh ~ Sarah J. Maas

The less control people had over their work, the higher their blood pressure during work hours. Moreover, blood pressure at home was unrelated to the level of job control, indicating that the spike during work hours was specifically caused by lack of choice on the job. People with little control over their work also experienced more back pain, missed more days of work due to illness in general, and had higher rates of mental illness-the human equivalent of stereotypies, resulting in the decreased quality of life common to animals reared in captivity. ~ Sheena Iyengar

The commandment to work is imposed on us by our descent from Adam and Eve, but it is a blessing to us. Illness and adversity are not punishments for being alive; they are natural accompaniments of life. Our bodies are not vile and loathsome snares for our spirits, but the temples of our spirits. The daily activities of mixing orange juice, making telephone calls, supervising homework, and scrubbing the bathtub are not distractions from our spiritual lives. They are the vehicles through which we live our spiritual lives. ~ Chieko N. Okazaki

I'd been depressed before, of course. But I'm talking about really depressed. Not just feeling a bit down or sad, a depression that has something to do with biorhythms. I'm talking about the kind of depressed that floats in upon you like a fog. You can feel it coming and you can see where it is going to take you but you are powerless, utterly powerless to stop it. I know now. ~ Alan Cumming

If we are suffering illness, poverty, or misfortune, we think we shall be satisfied on the day it ceases. But there too, we know it is false; so soon as one has got used to not suffering one wants something else. ~ Simone Weil

There's nothing worse than bottling something up inside and letting it eat at you. It's like being shot, and leaving the bullet inside our bodies. The wound would never heal. Instead, we need to let it out. ~ S.R. Crawford

Forgive me," I wrote at the bottom. "I did not think I would break. ~ Claire North

If you're selfish enough to kill yourself write your suicide note on the back of your will ~ Stanley Victor Paskavich

Degeneration and illness of our body is natural, but still we need to nurture it and take care of it, as we carry it until the last breath. ~ Anupama Garg

Manipulating or controlling others through the use of one's illness or suffering,for example,was-and remains-extremely effective for people who find they cannot be direct in their interactions,Who argues with someone who is in pain? And if pain is the only power a person has,health is not an attractive replacement. It was apparent to me that becoming healthy represented more than just getting over an illness. Health represented a complex progression into a state of personal empowerment in which one had to move from a condition of vulnerability to one of invincibility,from victim to victor,from silent bystander to aggressive defender of personal boundaries.Completing this race to the finish was a yeoman's task if ever there was one.Indeed,in opening the psyche and soul to the healing process,we had expanded the journey of wellness into one of personal transformation.
- ~ Caroline Myss

A terminal diagnosis can really mess with your head. Honestly, it makes you want to run away to the moon. Many ALS patients want to fade away quietly. This was not for me. ~ Steve Gleason

Physiological stress, then, is the link between personality traits and disease. Certain traits - otherwise known as coping styles - magnify the risk for illness by increasing the likelihood of chronic stress. Common to them all is a diminished capacity for emotional communication. Emotional experiences are translated into potentially damaging biological events when human beings are prevented from learning how to express their feelings effectively. That learning occurs - or fails to occur - during childhood. The way people grow up shapes their relationship with their own bodies and psyches. The emotional contexts of childhood interact with inborn temperament to give rise to personality traits. Much of what we call personality is not a fixed set of traits, only coping mechanisms a person acquired in childhood.

There is an important distinction between an inherent characteristic, rooted in an individual without regard to his environment, and a response to the environment, a pattern of behaviours developed to ensure survival. What we see as indelible traits may be no more than habitual defensive techniques, unconsciously adopted. People often identify with these habituated patterns, believing them to be an indispensable part of the self. They may even harbour self-loathing for certain traits - for example, when a person describes herself as "a control freak." In reality, there is no innate human inclination to be controlling. What there is in a "controlling" ~ Gabor Mate

If there are still honest-smart men and women within those old and noble traditions, they should think carefully, observe and diagnose the illness. They should face the contradiction. Discuss the conflation. And then do as Warren Buffett and Bill Gates and many others have done. Choose the miracle of creative competition over an idolatry of cash.
They should stand up.. ~ David Brin

My brain sometimes departs from the agreed-upon reality, and my private reality is a very lonely place. But in the end, I'm not sure I wish I'd never gone there. ~ Marya Hornbacher

I am proud of myself. ~ Charlena E. Jackson

Perfect. Imperfect. A pair of adjectives that come over and again, in all seasons, day in and day out, taunting us, judging us, isolating us, turning our isolation into illness. Is there a more accomplished adjective than perfect? Perfect is free from comparison, perfect rejects superlative. We can always be good, do better, try our best, but how perfect can we be before we can love ourselves and let others love us? And who, my dear child, has taken the word lovable out of your dictionary and mine, and replaced it with perfect? ~ Yiyun Li

Even with all that - excellent treatment, wonderful family and friends, supportive work environment - I did not make my illness public until relatively late in life, and that's because the stigma against mental illness is so powerful that I didn't feel safe with people knowing. If you hear nothing else today, please hear this: There are not 'schizophrenics'. There are people with schizophrenia, and these people may be your spouse, they may be your child, they may be your neighbor, they may be your friend, they may be your coworker. ~ Elyn Saks

Love, like madness, can only fill the models that society makes available. ~ Neel Burton

The way I figure it, everyone gets one miracle. Like, I will probably never be struck by lightning, or win a nobel prize, or become the dictator of a small nation in the Pacific Islands, or contract terminal ear cancer, or spontaneously combust. But If you consider all the unlikely things together, at least one of them will happen to each of us. ~ John Green

Gingerbread
I knew I had to get out of there
before the icing cracked and they discovered
that I'm burnt around the edges,
doughy in the center,
that what they thought was sugar
is salt.

If I was a good girl,
if I could satisfy their cravings,
if every dream in my misshapen head
didn't bite, I might have stayed at the table.

Wouldn't you run, too,
from such voracious love? ~ Christine Heppermann

We are selfish, my illness and I. We think only of ourselves. We shape the world around us into messages, into secret whispers spoken only for us. ~ Nathan Filer

My suggestion is that there's no way out of the human condition. Sex, death, marriage, children, parents, illness. There's no way out. They're a misery, all of them. ~ James Hillman

Grief is an illness I can't recover from. ~ Sue Grafton

Well, I thought, last night I paid my dues. I faced death. Now I can stay. ~ Mark Vonnegut

Payton "Sin" Sinclair was an unapologetic people-watcher. As a sports consultant, working with some of the biggest and most recognizable athletes in sports and business, he had to be able to read the smallest nuances of others. That ability was just one of the unique attributes that set him apart from the competition and made him the go-to person when corporations wanted to align themselves with the top professional athletes in the country. ~ Francis Ray

You should never give anyone power over your entire soul. ~ Charlena E. Jackson

I want to live fully, very intensely. I would never want to live partially, suffering from illness or injury. If I ever happen to have an accident that eventually costs my life, I hope it happens in one instant. ~ Ayrton Senna

We mistake our mistakes as being damaged. ~ Taylor Swift