Quotessence
Home / Quotes / Quote by Steven Magee

Quote by Steven Magee

Author

Steven Magee

Browse famous quotes and profile details for Steven Magee. more

You May Also Like

“Breast cancer, I can now report, did not make me prettier or stronger, more feminine or spiritual. What it gave me, if you want to call this a “gift,” was a very personal, agonizing encounter with an ideological force in American culture that I had not been aware of before—one that encourages us to deny reality, submit cheerfully to misfortune, and blame only ourselves for our fate.”

CancerBreast Cancer
Book:Bright-sided: How the Relentless Promotion of Positive Thinking Has Undermined America
Create image

“Two weeks ago, Aaron and Isaac, I learned your mother Laura has breast cancer. My heart feels impaled. These words, so useless and feeble. Laura is only thirty-five years old. Her next birthday will be in only three days. I write this letter to you, my sons, with the hope that one day in the future you will read it and understand what happened to our family. Together, your mother and I have created and nurtured an unbreakable bond that has transformed us into an unlikely team. A Chicano from El Paso, Texas. A Jew from Concord, Massachusetts. I want you to know your mother. She has given me hope when I have felt none; she has offered me kindness when I have been consumed by bitterness. I believe I have taught her how to be tough and savvy and how to achieve what you want around obstacles and naysayers. Our hope is that the therapies we are discussing with her doctors will defeat her cancer. But a great and ominous void has suddenly engulfed us at the beginning of our life as a family. This void suffocates me.”

FamilyParentingFatherhoodFamily RelationshipsBreast CancerFathersCancer SurvivorsSergio TroncosoBreast Cancer And Families
Book:Crossing Borders: Personal Essays
Create image

“As a recent editorial in the Journal of Clinical Oncology put it: "What we must first remember is that the immune system is designed to detect foreign invaders, and avoid out own cells. With few exceptions, the immune system does not appear to recognize cancers within an individual as foreign, because they are actually part of the self.”

PsychologyPositive ThinkingMedicineCancerBreast CancerImmune SystemOncologyClinical Oncology
Book:Bright-sided: How the Relentless Promotion of Positive Thinking Has Undermined America
Create image

“He walked across the room and flicked a switch. A spotlight turned on, illuminating a laminated poster of a woman on his wall. He took a crayon from his pocket and began drawing on it. I could see smudges from past demonstrations. [. . .] His dashed lines crisscrossed the woman's chest as if he were planning a military maneuver on undulating terrain.”

FearCancerSurgeryHelplessnessBreast CancerBreast ExamDoctor Visit
Book:Orphan Number Eight
Create image