I reckon being ill as one of the great pleasures of life, provided one is not too ill and is not obliged to work till one is better. ~Samuel Butler, The Way of All Flesh, 1903


I wonder why you can always read a doctor's bill and you can never read his prescription. ~Finley Peter Dunne


Warning: Humor may be hazardous to your illness. ~Ellie Katz


It is a mathematical fact that fifty percent of all doctors graduate in the bottom half of their class. ~Author Unknown


Happiness is your dentist telling you it won't hurt and then having him catch his hand in the drill. ~Johnny Carson


You have a cough? Go home tonight, eat a whole box of Ex-Lax - tomorrow you'll be afraid to cough. ~Pearl Williams


To array a man's will against his sickness is the supreme art of medicine. ~Henry Ward Beecher


Everyone who is born holds dual citizenship, in the kingdom of the well and in the kingdom of the sick. Although we all prefer to use only the good passport, sooner or later each of us is obliged, at least for a spell, to identify ourselves as citizens of that other place. ~Susan Sontag, Illness as Metaphor, 1977


After two days in the hospital, I took a turn for the nurse. ~W.C. Fields


I learned a long time ago that minor surgery is when they do the operation on someone else, not you. ~Bill Walton


Enduring habits I hate.... Yes, at the very bottom of my soul I feel grateful to all my misery and bouts of sickness and everything about me that is imperfect, because this sort of thing leaves me with a hundred backdoors through which I can escape from enduring habits. ~Friedrich Nietzsche, The Gay Science, 1882


The best six doctors anywhere
And no one can deny it
Are sunshine, water, rest, and air
Exercise and diet.
These six will gladly you attend
If only you are willing
Your mind they'll ease
Your will they'll mend
And charge you not a shilling.
~Nursery rhyme quoted by Wayne Fields, What the River Knows, 1990


If you're going through hell, keep going. ~Winston Churchill


Sleep, riches, and health to be truly enjoyed must be interrupted. ~Johann Paul Friedrich Richter, Flower, Fruit, and Thorn


If I had my way I'd make health catching instead of disease. ~Robert Ingersoll


The power of love to change bodies is legendary, built into folklore, common sense, and everyday experience. Love moves the flesh, it pushes matter around.... Throughout history, "tender loving care" has uniformly been recognized as a valuable element in healing. ~Larry Dossey