bookloverKGB

“Most of the patients I’ve been close to over these thirty-two years are dead. So there’s a certain sadness and moral outrage that I can’t get rid of. But when you work with people who’ve had so little chance in life, there’s a lot you can do. You try to take care of people, meet them where they are, figure out who they are, figure out what they need, how you can ease their suffering. I was drafted into this job, I didn’t pick it, but I lucked into the best job I can imagine.”
― Tracy Kidder, Rough Sleepers

“Thus it is that no cruelty whatsoever passes by without impact. Thus it is that we always pay dearly for chasing after what is cheap.”
― Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago 1918–1956

“La humanitat és una cosa espectacular, tan preparada per estimar sense conviccions, sense complexos.”
― Manon Steffan Ros, The Blue Book of Nebo

“People who worked and proselytized on behalf of homeless people formed a loose confederation, with one shared interest and many differing opinions. In recent years Jim had heard that some in the alliance claimed that the Program belonged to "the homelessness industry," which misspent resources that should be used for creating permanent supportive housing. Also that the Program was an insidious part of that status quo: It propped up an unjust system by successfully treating homeless people with diseases like AIDS, weakening one of the housing movement's chief arguments— "housing is health."

Almost always the criticism came indirectly, from friends of friends. This was convenient for a person who hated confrontations. Jim could reply forcefully but indirectly, to a friend of the critic, or sometimes to me in the privacy of his office or car. Often he'd start by invoking Barbara, "The older I get, the more I realize how wise she was. I remember somebody coming into the clinic, and saying to Barbara, who was working like hell, 'What are we going to do to fix this problem of homelessness?' And she looked up and said, 'Are you kidding me? I'm too busy. Don't ask me a question like that.' That was her way of saying, 'Stop torturing me with what society isn't about to do. Let's just do the best we can right now and take care of these folks.”
― Tracy Kidder, Rough Sleepers