Marcia Wallace Quotations

I'm in awe of people out there who deal with Alzheimer's, because they have to deal with death 10 times over, year after year.

I don't know what religious people do. I kind of wished I'd been a Christian with the blind faith that God is doing the right thing. As a Buddhist, you feel like you have more control over the situation, and that you can change your karma.

I think illness is a family journey, no matter what the outcome. Everybody has to be allowed to process it and mourn and deal with it in their own way.

Be good to yourself. Listen to your body, to your heart. We're very hard on ourselves, and we're always feeling like we're not doing enough. It's a terribly hard job.

I asked for help, which is the hardest thing in the world.

You know, this is a business where only 15% make a living wage and only 9% of those are women. But I figured somebody has to be that 15%, somebody's got to be one of those women.

I'm sure it really is hard to be an oncologist, and actually, more and more people are surviving cancer.

Eve Ensler is a hero of mine. She's been working for the rights of women for a long time.

I have a deep conviction that our lives are eternal, that it is waking and sleeping, that we are born together with the people we love lifetime after lifetime.

I went to these mixers, you know, where you're supposed to meet people. And sure enough, some guy asked me for my phone number. but at the end of the evening he gave it back.

There is no such thing as an unreasonable question, or a silly question, or a frivolous question, or a waste-of-time question. It's your life, and you've got to get these answers.

Nurses are my heroes... We dealt with a lot of oncology nurses... They are unsung and underpaid.

When you're going through all of this, the last thing you're thinking of as a patient, and especially as a caregiver, is to give yourself something that nurtures you and something that helps you not to get overwhelmed and burned out. Poetry, silence, walks, back rubs, or swimming, whatever, it's the thing you need most, and it's the thing you have to give yourself.

Doctors are not seeing people at their best. They're seeing frightened people, confused people, and overwhelmed people. If there's ever a time you need to have someone with you when you are being assaulted by the language of your disease and all the feelings that go with it, it's in the doctor's office.

I took off for New York City the day I graduated from college. I weighed 230 pounds and I had $150 in the bank.

Being a caregiver is the most thankless role in the world. Everybody gives the patient some slack, as they should, but the caregiver has the stress of life and then you put a catastrophic illness on top of it, and the stress goes through the roof.

I ignore all the doomsaying nonsense. I'm in a business where the odds of ever earning a living are a zillion to one, so I know itcan be done. I know the impossible can become possible.