Coping with Illness Quotes

Being diagnosed with a possibly life-threatening disease is so jarring and for me to know that God had me in his hands, I never felt alone.

Before my cancer was diagnosed, I knew that someday I would die, but I didn't know when. After the diagnosis, I knew that someday I would die, but I didn't know when. But now I knew it acutely.

And one day, this thing happened to me: I coughed, and the blood just came gushing out of my mouth. ... I still can't believe that that happened to me, but I sat there, and I said to God, 'Well, if it means I'm going to die, that's OK.' I don't think I've ever felt that same kind of peace, the kind of serenity that I felt after acknowledging that maybe I was going to die of this TB.

The more serious the illness, the more important it is for you to fight back, mobilizing all your resources-spiritual, emotional, intellectual, physical.

I want people to talk about my comedy, about cancer, about body issues, about scars, because cancer, it's a big deal, but scars are not a big deal. My skin healed. Relax, you know? That's all it is.

In my life I have had various health threats: polio, seizures, a brain aneurysm. None of these things has really changed me much, although it is hard to say for sure. These are events that are part of my life. They make me who I am. I am thankful for them. They are scary.

I began seeing my wife, Kathleen, while I was undergoing treatment for prostate cancer.

I tried to tell myself that it could be worse, that the world was not a wish-granting factory, that I was living with cancer not dying of it, that I mustn't let it kill me before it kills me.

Most people think, "Life sucks, and then you die." I disagree. I think life sucks. Then you get cancer. Then you go into chemotherapy. You lose all your hair, you feel bad about yourself. Then all of the sudden the cancer goes into remission, and then all of the sudden you have a stroke. You can't move your right side. And then, maybe, you die.

So far, I have decided to take whatever my disease can throw at me, and to stay combative even while taking the measure of my inevitable decline. I repeat, this is no more than what a healthy person has to do in slower motion.

The day it all changed. The day I stated never to take anything for granted. The day I learned to take charge of my life. It was the day I was diagnosed with cancer.

I don't talk about having cancer in my standup anymore. I don't have cancer. But if it comes up for me again, that I'm going through something, I'm going to talk about it. I'm going to do whatever feels right whenever it feels right.

When my daughter was ill in Great Ormond Street, it was the darkest period of my life.

I'll fight it. I'll fight it for you. Don't you worry about me, Hazel Grace. I'm okay. I'll find a way to hang around and annoy you for a long time.

Back in the old days, a man could just get sick and die. Now they have to wage a battle. So my Uncle Bert is waging a courageous battle, which I've seen, because I go and visit him. And this is the battle: he's lying in the hospital bed, with a thing in his arm, watching Matlock on the TV.

I'm still trying to figure out how to write about cancer and my family's experience with it. If I had been able to write 'The Pura Principle' back in those days, I'm positive it would have had no humor in it. Which means the story would have been false.

My life had made me funny, and cancer wasn't going to change that.

I would've loved to have children and I'm really good with kids, but I just didn't want to commit to anything when I had cancer. I didn't want to plan for the future.

When God gives you AIDS - and God does give you AIDS, by the way - make lemonAIDS.

There is something in sickness that breaks down the pride of manhood.

Once I faced the fact I was going to deal with illness for the rest of my life, I got on with what I really wanted to do.

It was a very difficult time. I was working on [umble-Ardy] when my partner and friend was dying of cancer. We set up a room in the house to be like a hospital room. Eugene died, and then I had bypass surgery. I was doing the book to stay sane while all this was going on.

My whole life has been about changing negatives into positives. I got famous, then I got cancer, and now I live to talk about it. Sometimes the best gifts come in the ugliest packages.

I was angry at my parents when I had to have brain surgery, that they weren't still around, because no matter how old you are you want you parents when you're going through something like that.

When I was 17 years old, I put out an album while my mother was dying of cancer. That right there alone is a struggle. That's hard. That's tough for anybody.