Cancer Stigma Quotes

When I hear a guy lost a battle to cancer, that really did bother me, that that's a term. It implies that he failed and that somebody else that defeated cancer is heroic and courageous.

One of the pitfalls of writing about illness is that it is very easy to imagine people with cancer as either these wise, beyond-their-years creatures or else these sad-eyed, tragic people. And the truth is people living with cancer are very much like people who are not living with cancer.

Should I talk about [having breast cancer]? Because how many things could I have? You know black, lesbian - I'm like, I can't be the poster child for everything. At least with the LGBT issues we get a parade and a float and it's a party.

It's a shame that cancer has been something that's been accepted in society as something that's always gonna be there.

Cancer patients are lied to, not just because the disease is (or is thought to be) a death sentence, but because it is felt to be obscene - in the original meaning of that word: ill-omened, abominable, repugnant to the senses.

I'm not considered as illegitimate as I once was. Because in a sense, I'm like lip cancer - I'm not going to go away.

I haven't talked much about being an ovarian cancer survivor because I don't really want to define myself that way.

The fantasies inspired by TB in the last century, by cancer now, are responses to a disease thought to be intractable and capricious--that is, a disease not understood--in an era in which medicine's central premise is that all diseases can be cured.

There's nothing sexy about cancer.

I think the way we talk about cancer has really evolved. I remember the way my grandmother used to talk about it, like a death sentence, no-one would even mention the word.

Please make sure everyone knows how much their messages mean to me. They have added greatly to my peace of mind. I only wish some of the writers would take a more positive approach to the menace of cancer. I've got it, sure; but I'm not afraid to use the word. Some of them act like it's a dirty word. That's the wrong attitude. We should all bring it out in the open, recognize that it exists, and fight it! Cancer is everybody's enemy. We can't 'think' an enemy out of existence by ignoring it.

We talk about cancer as a noun, as if it's a one time event: 'I've got cancer.'

I want to not be associated with death or cancer, I don't want that life.

I've sort of knocked cancer down to size. It shouldn't be something that makes people uncomfortable.

Having cancer is one thing; looking like you have cancer is another thing. It's a disease that already takes so much.

I don't like life that much. It's not that big a deal for me... I don't want to know I have cancer till it's visible to the naked eye.

The language surrounding cancer is not language I'm particularly comfortable with.

Obviously, breast cancer is very much out there but cervical cancer isn't talked about as much because there's a bit more of a stigma around it. Certainly that's something I want to make sure that young girls know.

There's a phrase in Shakespeare: he refers to it as the 'hidden imposthume', and this idea of a hidden swelling is seminal to cancer. But even in more contemporary writing it's called 'the big C'.

You hear the word 'cancer,' and you think it is a death sentence. In fact, the shock is the biggest thing about a diagnosis of cancer.

People didn't feel so much shame around it and that they didn't feel so much humiliation around it. And the other thing that people have given me a lot of feedback about - something I'm very excited about - is all the stuff around chemo as an "empathetic warrior."

I think only things that are personal to us offend us. It's always bizarre when people who would normally laugh at an AIDS joke won't laugh at a cancer joke, but far more people know somebody who's died from cancer.

Nobody talks about cancer until they have to, and then, it's really all you can talk about.

Women still, when they have breast cancer, go to work; they still lead their lives. They have to. I just did what I was supposed to do. I didn't want to exploit it or be too "actory" about it, if that makes any sense. That's also why I didn't shave my head; I feel like you have to earn that. I applaud other actors who do that and I am not ripping on them, but to me, that's a badge of honor if you're fighting this disease.

Every era casts cancer in its own image.