A minor operation is one that is done on someone else

- Richard Selzer

Each is like a river that leaves behind its name and shape, the whole course of its path , to vanish into the vast sea of God.

- Richard Selzer

You do not die all at once. Some tissues live on for minutes, even hours, giving still their little cellular shrieks, molecular echoes of the agony o…

- Richard Selzer

And If the surgeon is like a poet, then the scars you have made on countless bodies are like verses into the fashioning of which you have poured your…

- Richard Selzer

The heart is pure theater throbbing in its cage palpably as any nightingale.

- Richard Selzer

The surgeon knows all the parts of the brain but he does not know his patient's dreams.

- Richard Selzer

Cutting for Stone is nothing short of masterful -a riveting tale of love, medicine, and the complex dynamic of twin brothers. It is beautifully conce…

- Richard Selzer

Autopsies give us the facts but not the truth.

- Richard Selzer

The Country Doctor Revisited is a fine achievement. Purporting to be an overview of the practice of medicine in rural areas, it is a splendid portrai…

- Richard Selzer