Josh Bazell
Josh Bazell has a BA in writing from Brown University and a MD from Columbia University. He is currently a medical resident at the University of California, San Francisco, and is working on his second novel. He wrote "Beat the Reaper" during the end of medical school and the beginning of residency. Some of his favorite writers are James Ellroy, Ken Bruen, Michael Connelly and Peter Lovesey. He states that he got the idea for this novel when going through medical school training and observed the tension physicians feel between doing medicine and their life outside of medicine. So he wanted to write about a doctor who was also the opposite of a doctor.
“Like most people raised on American movies, I have poor access to my emotions, but can banter like a motherfucker.”
Josh Bazell
“Deliverance' is The Godfather for crackers.”
Josh Bazell
“that look you get after every bone in your face has been broken at least once and then allowed to set without medical attention”
Josh Bazell
“The journey from shame to resentment is the shortest on there is.”
Josh Bazell
“If you're going to be soulless, you should at least consider outsourcing your conscience to someone else.”
Josh Bazell
“But rituals turn us all into fucking idiots. Like those birds that sleep with their heads facing backwards because their ancestors slept with their heads under their wings. Plutarch says carrying new wives across thresholds is stupid because we don't remember that it refers to the rape of the Sabine women - and that's fucking Plutarch, two thousand years ago. We still draw the Reaper with a scythe. We should draw him driving a John Deere for Archer Daniels Midland.”
Josh Bazell
“It shows something, though: if you're going to be soulless, you should at least consider outsourcing your conscience to someone else.”
Josh Bazell
“The complete destruction of the human race is fairly amusing, obviously, particularly if it's going to happen through overpopulation and technology, the only two hobbies we've ever taken seriously.”
Josh Bazell
“Calling a tongue piecing 'cosmetic' is a bit of a stretch, since you don't get one because it makes you look better. You get one because you're so desperate for affection that you're willing to gruesomely harm yourself to advertise how well you suck dick.”
Josh Bazell
“So I'm on my way to work and I stop to watch a pigeon fight a rat in the snow, and some fuckhead tries to mug me!”
Josh Bazell
“When God is truly angry, He will not send vengeful angels.He will send Magdalena.Then take her away.”
Josh Bazell
“The fucking beef industry and the fucking HMO industry,' Friendly says. 'Al-Cowda and HMOsama.”
Josh Bazell
“Ah, youth. It's like heroin you've smoked instead of snorted. Gone so fast you can't believe you still have to pay for it.”
Josh Bazell
“It's a weird curse, when you think about it. We're built for thought, and civilization, more than any other creature we've found. And all we really want to be is killers. ”
Josh Bazell
“what a fascinating mix a hospital can be of people in a huge hurry and people too slow to get out of their way.”
Josh Bazell