Jessica Sim

“History has failed us, but no matter.”
― Min Jin Lee, Pachinko

“Death comes for all of us. For us, for our patients: it is our fate as living, breathing, metabolizing organisms. Most lives are lived with passivity toward death -- it's something that happens to you and those around you. But Jeff and I had trained for years to actively engage with death, to grapple with it, like Jacob with the angel, and, in so doing, to confront the meaning of a life. We had assumed an onerous yoke, that of mortal responsibility. Our patients' lives and identities may be in our hands, yet death always wins. Even if you are perfect, the world isn't. The secret is to know that the deck is stacked, that you will lose, that your hands or judgment will slip, and yet still struggle to win for your patients. You can't ever reach perfection, but you can believe in an asymptote toward which you are ceaselessly striving.”
― Paul Kalanithi, When Breath Becomes Air

“Could one perform the Heimlich manoeuvre on a penguin?”
― Tom Michell, The Penguin Lessons

“So then the success tax comes from envy, and the shit tax comes from exploitation... The tax for being mediocre comes from you and everyone else knowing that you are mediocre. It's a heavier tax than you'd think.”
― Min Jin Lee, Pachinko