Tara van Brederode

“central imperative of liberation theology—to provide a preferential option for the poor—seemed like a worthy life’s goal to him. Of course, one could pursue it almost anywhere, but clearly the doctrine implied making choices among degrees of poverty. It would make sense to provide medicine in the places that needed it most, and there was no place needier than Haiti, at least in the Western Hemisphere, and he hadn’t seen any place in Haiti needier than Cange. He didn’t stick around in Léogâne to see the blood bank get installed. He’d found out that the hospital would charge patients for its use. He told me he had these thoughts, as he headed back toward the central plateau: “I’m going to build my own fucking hospital. And there’ll be none of that there, thank you.”
― Tracy Kidder, Mountains Beyond Mountains: The Quest of Dr. Paul Farmer, a Man Who Would Cure the World

“the only manuscripts in her entire career that had required no editing, “no repeat absolutely no editorial suggestions from me or anyone else,” were Wilder’s and E. B. White’s.”
― Caroline Fraser, Prairie Fires: The American Dreams of Laura Ingalls Wilder

“How does one person with great talents come to exert a force on the world? I think in Farmer’s case the answer lies somewhere in the apparent craziness, the sheer impracticality, of half of everything he does, including the hike to Casse.”
― Tracy Kidder, Mountains Beyond Mountains: The Quest of Dr. Paul Farmer, a Man Who Would Cure the World

“When we do things differently, and very often we do, I remind myself that it is rarely a matter of right and wrong. We are simply two adults who grew up in different houses far away from one another.”
― Ann Patchett, This Is the Story of a Happy Marriage