Rose

“She had appetites in plenty: she spent all her strength in repressing them and she underwent this denial in anger.”
― Simone de Beauvoir, A Very Easy Death

“As medical progress has extended our lives, the result has been what’s called the “rectangularization” of survival. Throughout most of human history, a society’s population formed a sort of pyramid: young children represented the largest portion—the base—and each successively older cohort represented a smaller and smaller group. In 1950, children under the age of five were 11 percent of the US population, adults aged forty-five to forty-nine were 6 percent, and those over eighty were 1 percent. Today, we have as many fifty-year-olds as five-year-olds. In thirty years, there will be as many people over eighty as there are under five. The same pattern is emerging throughout the industrialized world.”
― Atul Gawande, Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End

“But it is impossible for anyone to say ‘I am sacrificing myself’ without feeling bitterness.”
― Simone de Beauvoir, A Very Easy Death

“When it comes to performance, strong purpose trumps strong passion.”
― Chip Heath, The Power of Moments: Why Certain Moments Have Extraordinary Impact