Those words provide an epigraph partway through Abraham Verghese’s first novel, “Cutting for Stone,” and also explain the surname of its narrator, Marion Stone, … Cutting for Stone Quotes Showing 1-30 of 263 “The key to your happiness is to own your slippers, own who you are, own how you look, own your family, own the talents you have, and own the ones you don't. Cutting for Stone - the phrase is from the Hippocratic oath - is about twins born joined at the head, in a mission hospital in Addis Ababa half a century ago.