Carolina

“The consumptive poet cannot be in the snow, only lying in the house in the snow. For me, anyway, this way of understanding chronic illness--as being of the world but also no permitted by circumstances or the social order to be entirely WITH the world--is a sentiment applied from within rather than from without, a way of thinking about the limits and opportunities of disability that acknowledges the difference and loss without othering or romanticizing. It's not trustful or loving or soothing or mild. It's true.”
― John Green, Everything Is Tuberculosis: The History and Persistence of Our Deadliest Infection

“Maybe one day, in some future now, someone will
read what I have written and learn of our existence. That we were part of a Sacred Sisterhood and lived on a sliver of land that remained pure, resplendent, thanks to the piety of the Enlightened.
Or maybe they’ll become dust and return to the earth, fertilizing it, nourishing the roots of a tree, and our story will be understood through the leaves that oxygenate the collapsed world.”
― Agustina Bazterrica, The Unworthy

“But survival is not primarily an act of individual will, of course. It's an act of collective will.”
― John Green, Everything Is Tuberculosis: The History and Persistence of Our Deadliest Infection

“And so here is Shreya, saying “Polo” to me from across the great divide. But she is also saying “Marco.” She is also telling me to hear her voice, and answer her call. People often ask me why I’m obsessed with tuberculosis. I’m a novelist, not a historian of medicine. TB is rare where I live. It doesn’t affect me. And that’s all true. But I hear Shreya, and Henry, and so many others calling to me: Marco. Marco. Marco.”
― John Green, Everything Is Tuberculosis: The History and Persistence of Our Deadliest Infection