Cutting for Stone is nothing short of masterful -a riveting tale of love, medicine, and the complex dynamic of twin brothers. It is beautifully conceived and written. The settings are wonderfully pictorial. There is no doubt in my mind that… — Richard Selzer Copy Share Image
You cannot separate passion from pathology any more than you can separate a person's spirit from his body. — Richard Selzer Copy Share Image
And If the surgeon is like a poet, then the scars you have made on countless bodies are like verses into the fashioning of… — Richard Selzer Copy Share Image
Thus is the fruit of the Earth taken, its flesh torn. Thus is it given over standing, toward rot. It is the principle of… — Richard Selzer Copy Share Image
You do not die all at once. Some tissues live on for minutes, even hours, giving still their little cellular shrieks, molecular echoes of… — Richard Selzer Copy Share Image
“You will see at precisely what moment the writer ceases to think of his character as an instrument to be manipulated and think of… — Richard Selzer Copy Share Image
The liver, that great maroon snail: No wave of emotion sweeps it. Neither music nor mathematics gives it pause in its appointed tasks. — Richard Selzer Copy Share Image
Surgery is the red flower that blooms among the leaves and thorns that are the rest of medicine. — Richard Selzer Copy Share Image
If people understood that doctors weren't divine, perhaps the odor of malpractice might diminish. — Richard Selzer Copy Share Image
I contemplate the body, dead and diseased as well as alive and healthy. — Richard Selzer Copy Share Image
The surgeon knows all the parts of the brain but he does not know his patient's dreams. — Richard Selzer Copy Share Image
“There are no "great" subjects for the creative writer; there are only the singular details of a single human life.” — Richard Selzer Copy Share Image
