19 Quotes by Jerome Groopman

To hope under the most extreme circumstances is an act of defiance that permits a person to live his life on his own terms. It is part of the human spirit to endure and give a miracle a chance to happen.

Hope can be imagined as a domino effect, a chain reaction, each increment making the next increase more feasible... There are moments of fear and doubt that can deflate it.

I had learned that every patient has the right to hope, despite long odds, and it was my role to help nurture that hope.

... omniscience about life and death is not within a physician's purview. A doctor should never write off a person a priori.

A book is an experiment, and as with all experiments, there is a sense of uncertainty about how it will turn out.

True hope has no room for delusion.

Hope differs from optimism. Hope does not arise from being told to “think positively,” or from hearing an overly rosy forecast. Hope, unlike optimism, is rooted in unalloyed reality.

Hope is the elevating feeling we experience when we see – in the mind’s eye – a path to a better future.

There is an authentic biology of hope. Belief and expectation – the key elements of hope – can block pain by releasing the brain’s endorphins and enkephalins, mimicking the effects of morphine.