Sherwin B. Nuland Quotes

The dignity we seek in dying must be found in the dignity with which we have lived our lives.

If I only had 24 hours to live, I'd most likely spend it letting people know I loved them, and trying to make things right with whoever things were wrong with. One thing about life, man, once you're gone, the only true impact you have is on the lives you affected positively, no matter how many hit songs or movies you had.

Everyone dies. It is how one lives that matters.

I have not often seen much dignity in the process by which we die.

The belief in the probability of death with dignity is our, and society’s, attempt to deal with the reality of what is all too frequently a series of destructive events that involve by their very nature the disintegration of the dying person’s humanity. I have not often seen much dignity in the process by which we die.

The definition of what it means to be dying has changed radically. We are able to extend people's lives considerably, including sometimes, good days.

We pick up people dying full of worms from the street. We have picked up more than 40,000 of them. If I lift up such a person, clean him, love him and serve him, is it conversion? He has been there like an animal in the street but I am giving him love and he dies peacefully. That peace comes from his heart. That's between him and God.

Dying people don't need medicine, the ones who remain do.

If a man dies of cancer in fear and despair, then cry for his pain and celebrate his life. The other man, who fought like hell and laughed in the end, but also died, may have had an easier time in his final months, but took his leave with no more humanity.

Death deserves dignity.

People are not like a business. You can’t buy and sell them like so much property. You can’t lock them up in a vault and expect them to appreciate it.

...these things become the norm: that some homeless people die of cold on the streets is not news. In contrast, a ten point drop on the stock markets of some cities, is a tragedy. A person dying is not news, but if the stock markets drop ten points it is a tragedy! Thus people are disposed of, as if they were trash.

When one has not long to live, why shouldn't one have fancies?

I hope people have pulled something about me and said "Hey Mr. T loves his mother, hey Mr. T ain't no dummy, hey Mr. T never grabbed his crotch," when you're talking about Hip-Hop culture.

Our reluctance to honestly examine the experience of aging and dying has increased the harm we inflict on people and denied them the basic comforts they most need.

A truly free society is based on a vision of respect for people and what they value.

My legacy is in my family, not in my work. For me. I don't know about for other people. I try to forget a lot.

In our final moments we all realize that relationships are what life is all about. Wisdom is learning that truth sooner rather than later.

I could never find two people who are perfectly equal: one will always be more valuable than the other. And many people, as a matter of fact, simply have no value.

The evidence is that people who enter hospice don't have shorter lives. In many cases they are longer.

There are about as many ways to be dead as there are to be alive. People linger in different ways, both publicly and privately.

People have value and are important. Big or small they are important.

Age isn't as important so long as you are surrounded by people you love, doing things you passionately believe in.

[…] life is just the misery left between abortion and euthanasia […]

He didn't want the respect of people who weren’t worth wiping his nose on—people who weren't worth the spatout gum attached to the bottom of his worn-out shoes. The only respect he wanted was from himself and the people who really mattered in his life. The people who really loved and cared about him.