# Quote — Abraham Verghese, Cutting for Stone

> The ritual of immigration and baggage claim at Kennedy Airport went by so quickly that I wondered if I'd missed it. Where were the armed soldiers? The dogs? The long lines? The body searches? Where were the tables where your luggage was laid open and a knife taken to the lining?

- Author: [Abraham Verghese](https://www.leafyquotes.com/abraham-verghese.md)
- Book: [Cutting for Stone](https://www.leafyquotes.com/abraham-verghese/cutting-for-stone.md)
- Source: [Wikiquote](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Abraham_Verghese#Cutting_for_Stone_(2009)) ([CC BY-SA 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/))
- Quote page: https://www.leafyquotes.com/abraham-verghese/cutting-for-stone/the-ritual-of-immigration

## More from this book

> Encouraged by the old surgical saw "Any idiot can amputate a led," Ghosh had decided to proceed. If he hesitated, it was because the rest of the saying went "but it takes a skilled surgeon to save one."

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/abraham-verghese/cutting-for-stone/encouraged-by-the.md)

> Ghosh trusted me to do whatever it is I would choose to do. That, too, is love. He'd been dead more than a quarter century and he was still teaching me about the trust that comes only from true love.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/abraham-verghese/cutting-for-stone/ghosh-trusted-me.md)

> But you reach a point where after trying and trying you say, Patience be damned. Let them suffer their distorted worldview. Your job is to preserve yourself, not to descend into their hole. It's a relief when you arrive at this place, the point of absurdity, because then you are free, you know you owe them nothing.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/abraham-verghese/cutting-for-stone/but-you-reach.md)