Father Barron Quotes & Sayings

Your father had other plans for you. Alas, his breakdown and untimely demise derailed everything he'd worked to accomplish. He would not approve of your quixotic pursuit of Imogene. She became embroiled in his vendetta with the forces of darkness, as it were. No sense following her into oblivion."
Conrad said, "You talk a lot for a guy on oxygen. — Laird Barron

Mom and Dad were bibliophiles. Dad shared his father's love of westerns, Mom favored the likes of Zelazny and Heinlein, Howard and Burroughs. We owned several hundred books stored in trunks that comprised our portable library. — Laird Barron

My father's concern for his patients was only enhanced by the fact that so many of them had a personal connection to him...In the words of the historian David J. Rothman, 'doctor and patient occupied the same social space,' promoting a shared relationship. Meanwhile, the poor and minority patients my dad met for the first time at the Mount Sinai--including many he would then follow for years--got the same royal treatment...His goal was to 'take extra pains with the service patients, to be certain they are reassured and confident in your care, and come to believe that you really care about him or her as an individual.' One way he did this was to take advantage of his flexible schedule. 'It's so simple,' he wrote, 'to make an extra visit in the afternoon for these special cases, come back to report a new lab test result, review an X-ray [or] reassure that the scheduled test is necessary, important and will lead to some conclusive information.' Illness, he underscored, was 'frightening. — Barron H. Lerner

...what struck me the most was my father's total immersion in not only her disease but her quest to get well. That is, as long as Laura was game, he was willing to explore every single option and provide every last bit of support that he could. Moreover, he did so by blurring conventional understandings of medical specialties and medication options, crafting a unique plan of treatment culled from his vast clinical knowledge and that of his peers. It is impossible to know the exact impact of my father's ministrations on Laura's survival, but I would like to think she knew that she was receiving all the expertise and comfort that was humanly available to her. — Barron H. Lerner

Susan was frustrated and angry with her disease, which she survived for more than nine years. And my father became the receptacle for her vitriol. 'She screams and carries on when the going gets tough,' he wrote, 'knowing that I understand and will never reproach her, never abandon her, whatever!' He even encouraged her to use him in this manner, suspecting that once she was drained, she became more rational, placid, and cooperative regarding treatment decisions. My dad suspected that his medical expertise had prolonged her life but was even surer that he had helped her mental suffering by letting her know that he 'was always available, even for the most trivial of problems or questions. — Barron H. Lerner