Mel

“The American Society of Civil Engineers said in 2007 that the U.S. had fallen so far behind in maintaining its public infrastructure -- roads, bridges, schools, dams -- that it would take more than a trillion and half dollars over five years to bring it back up to standard. Instead, these types of expenditures are being cut back. At the same time, public infrastructure around the world is facing unprecedented stress, with hurricanes, cyclones, floods and forest fires all increasing in frequency and intensity. It's easy to imagine a future in which growing numbers of cities have their frail and long-neglected infrastructures knocked out by disasters and then are left to rot, their core services never repaired or rehabilitated. The well-off, meanwhile, will withdraw into gated communities, their needs met by privatized providers. ”
― Naomi Klein, The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism

“Jack? It’s Margeaux.”
“My sister? Why would my sister be calling me? How did she get my number? Crazy questions blipped through my head. I knew she had married and was living in New Orleans, but we rarely spoke and have never been close by any means”
“Margeaux?”
“I’m calling from the police station. Dad was just brought in and I thought I should let you know.”
“What! Why was he brought in?”
“Jack, he’s been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. He drove himself into New Orleans to Quest Diagnostic for some blood tests and he was waiting to be called. Apparently, they took other people back that had come in after him. He got upset and made a scene. The staff tried to explain that those people all had appointments and he didn’t. He became so abusive, they called security, but before they even got there, Dad knocked down one of the technicians. That’s when they called the police. They came and took him.”
― Behcet Kaya, Treacherous Estate

“yet love can move people to act in unexpected ways and move them to overcome the most daunting obstacles with startling heroism”
― Khaled Hosseini, A Thousand Splendid Suns

“Mind you, sometimes the angels smoke, hiding it with their sleeves, and when the archangel comes, they throw the cigarettes away: that’s when you get shooting stars.”
― Vladimir Nabokov