‘Our friends show us what we can do; our enemies teach us what we must do.’


“You can’t ever reach perfection, but you can believe in an asymptote toward which you are ceaselessly striving.”
― When Breath Becomes Air
― When Breath Becomes Air

“It is not death that the very old tell me they fear. It is what happens short of death—losing their hearing, their memory, their best friends, their way of life. As Felix put it to me, “Old age is a continuous series of losses.” Philip Roth put it more bitterly in his novel Everyman: “Old age is not a battle. Old age is a massacre.”
― Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End
― Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End

“Remember: The rules, like streets, can only take you to known places.”
― On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous
― On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous

“You know the greatest lesson of history? It’s that history is whatever the victors say it is. That’s the lesson. Whoever wins, that’s who decides the history. We act in our own self-interest. Of course we do. Name me a person or a nation who does not. The trick is figuring out where your interests are.”
― All the Light We Cannot See
― All the Light We Cannot See

“So how, children, does the brain, which lives without a spark of light, build for us a world full of light?”
― All the Light We Cannot See
― All the Light We Cannot See
Jinyan’s 2024 Year in Books
Take a look at Jinyan’s Year in Books, including some fun facts about their reading.
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