Iron Lung Quotes

17 quotes from 16 authors

People who spent months in a metal chamber know how ordinary moments turn into battles for breath. Seventeen voices recount raw memories—painful polio attacks, a paralysed year, and humor when the world feels heavy. If you’re drawn to medical history, the Polio Survivors page offers more, and the Survival Stories collection adds depth.

Rate this collection: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ No ratings yet

When I was a teenager, I was in an iron-lung.

Creed Bratton

Image

“It is hard to leave your iron lung, Dr. Scarpetta.”

Patricia Cornwell

Image

It's you people dying from nothing that are screwed. I got all sorts of neat gadgets waiting for me...oxygen tent, iron lung.

Bill Hicks

Image

“Who decides which defects are funny and which ones are tragic? Nobody laughs at blind people or makes iron lung jokes.”

David Mitchell

Image

If you think dope is for kicks and for thrills, you're out of your mind. There are more kicks to be had…

Billie Holiday

Image

All of us in the Senate live in an iron lung-the iron lung of politics, and it is no easy task to…

John F. Kennedy

Image

on Broadway money rules. Like a host of vultures, the ticket brokers, the speculators, the craft unions, the agents, the backers, the…

Marya Mannes

Image

These friendly skies aint for you, they for me and mine, this the year of the grimy nigga, Ragtime, peep these niggas…

Wu Tang

Image

Some survived due to advancements in engineering. Personally I'd take a vaccine over living in an iron lung. http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2012/01/what-america-looked-like-polio-children-paralyzed-in-iron-lungs/251098/

Howard Tayler

Image

I was actually in an iron lung for about a year, and then I was paralysed from the neck down for another…

David Sanborn

Image

I have a vague memory of seeing an image of a child in an iron lung and the phrase "sad little breathing…

Matthea Harvey

Image

I had a mild case of polio - not enough to put me in an iron lung, but enough to keep me…

Robert Redford

Image

“Everything I have ever bought is in my car. People say it’s a skip and disgusting, and refuse to get in there.…

Jeremy Clarkson

Image

“Faye keeps forgetting what she'll be giving up if she decides to stay here. Access to modern medicine, for starters. In 2015…

Tiffany Reisz

Image

“Paralytic It happens. Will it go on? ---- My mind a rock, No fingers to grip, no tongue, My god the iron…

Sylvia Plath

Image

“Consider the power of love. I remember a mother I met once as I made a professional house call. This woman was…

Russell M. Nelson

Image

“You're a freak. But I really can't accept these-' Were you raised in a barn? Don't be ruuuuuude, my boy. They're a…

J.R. Ward

Image