Abbie Day

“But since lack of empathy was an expression that the investigator had also used a few minutes earlier in connection with my way of recounting the facts, I reminded her of what I had said initially, namely that empathy is expressly discouraged and it isn’t hard to understand why. Either you save, or you sympathise.”
― Vincent Delecroix, Small Boat

“There is no shipwreck without spectators. Even when there's no one, when it's far out at sea, at night, without witnesses, even when there's no living soul in sight for thousands of nautical miles, only waves and the viscous night, covering everything, swallowing everything; when there are no more eyes to see than there are arms to reach out, there are still spectators and the shore from which they are watching is never far away, even if, at the same time, it is infinitely distant. Even with their eyes shut, people are still watching, and I can't think of a single one who could say: I wasn't there. From inside their own homes, they are all watching the drama, and the drama is never ending; it plays out every day, every night, on high days and holidays, even when they're doing other things, they're still spectators of the 'drama at sea.”
― Vincent Delecroix, Small Boat

“I’m simply asking you, can you actually not imagine what they went through in those three hours, what it feels like to spend three hours watching yourself die. And I’m not asking you for my sake, she felt obliged to add, but for yours, because if you can’t get your head around that, you need to be asking yourself some questions: it doesn’t take much imagination to be a moral person.”
― Vincent Delecroix, Small Boat

“But it’s enough for one to be lost and there is always one, there has to be one – and it’s as if you had saved no one. So with all this going on, this ongoing shipwreck, why bother? I asked. And why save this person rather than that one, when they are all condemned. And what justice is there? Why save one, ten, twenty; it’s all same, since you can’t save them all. There is always one left.”
― Vincent Delecroix, Small Boat