Not as a Stranger (1955)

Broderick Crawford: Dr. Aarons

Quotes 

• Dr. Aarons : [Opening lines]  Gentlemen, this is a corpse!

• Dr. Aarons : There is a tradition among medical students that dealing with death humorously makes things easier. It doesn't. There may be a successful Joke about death in the abstract, but l have never heard it. About death in the particular, believe me there is nothing funny at all. I have been a pathologist for over twenty-five years, I haven't been able to get a single laugh out of it yet.

• Dr. Aarons : [lighting a cigarette]  Well, gentlemen, you've completed your internship. You're practising physicians now. This will be your last staff meeting. You saw your first dissection on this very table - and l think it's fitting that we say goodbye here. Now a pathologist usually has the last word, in this particular case it's a very hard word to find, because - well, because if you don't know it by now - if it isn't in your hearts - it's too late for me to tell it to you. Goodbye. God bless all of you. And -- don't endorse any cigarettes!

• Dr. Aarons : I can see the picture you got of yourself already... a country road and an old Ford. It's a white house and you are Saint George complete in spotless armor. You get to a farmhouse. There's this man bleeding to death. Now alone, without instruments, without assistance, you perform an impossible operation, and because your heart is pure, you save him.

  Lucas Marsh : I haven't any th...

  Dr. Aarons : [Interrupting]  You're going to go down that road. When you get there, you know what you're going to find? A man with a boil on his backside. You hear me? A boil on his backside! You will lance it and go home.

  Lucas Marsh : [Smiling ironically and turning to leave]  Good-bye, Doctor.

  Dr. Aarons : [Loudly across the room]  Marsh, you're one of the most brilliant students we've ever had here. You'll be aa great physician. Stop living your life like a Greek tragedy, or you'll muff it!

  Lucas Marsh : [Soberly]  Thank you.

  Dr. Aarons : [Quietly]  Goodbye, Doctor.

• Dr. Aarons : Now fix firmly in your heads that seven hours ago this was a living soul, housed in an edifice constructed by a supremely capable Architect.

  [picks up a scalpel] 

  Dr. Aarons : You are about to violate it.

• Dr. Aarons : Gentlemen, if there is a single description of a doctor, it is this: a doctor is memory! Now the survivors of this course will be members of the only group in modern society privileged to commit manslaughter with immunity from the law. Therefore you will learn everything. Not seventy percent - but everything! Otherwise you will be dropped.

• Dr. Aarons : Marsh, you're wallowing in self-pity. Look, l want to tell you something. l was a promising student, too. l had to face the same problems you're facing now - and a lot more. You're not a Jew. I'm part of the five-percent they let in here because they were ashamed to keep us out entirely. Now you've got me wallowing.