christina

“However, as bad as things were, the worst was yet to come, for germs would kill more people than bullets. By the time that last fever broke and the last quarantine sign came down, the world had lost 3-5% of its population.”
― Charles River Editors, The 1918 Spanish Flu Pandemic: The History and Legacy of the World’s Deadliest Influenza Outbreak

“That life - whatever else it is - is short. That fate is cruel but maybe not random. That Nature (meaning Death) always wins but that doesn’t mean we have to bow and grovel to it. That maybe even if we’re not always so glad to be here, it’s our task to immerse ourselves anyway: wade straight through it, right through the cesspool, while keeping eyes and hearts open. And in the midst of our dying, as we rise from the organic and sink back ignominiously into the organic, it is a glory and a privilege to love what Death doesn’t touch.”
― Donna Tartt, The Goldfinch

“Your father's coming. . . ." she said quietly. "Hold on for your father. . . . It will be alright. . . . Hold on. . . .”
― J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

“When the next pandemic comes, as it surely will someday, perhaps we will be ready to meet it. If we are not, the outcome will be very, very, very dreadful.”
― Albert Marrin, Very, Very, Very Dreadful: The Influenza Pandemic of 1918