Emily

“Framing illness as even involving morality seems to me a mistake, because of course cancer does not give a shit whether you are a good person. Biology has no moral compass. It does not punish the evil and reward the good. It doesn’t even know about evil and good.

Stigma is a way of saying, “You deserved to have this happen,” but implied within the stigma is also, “And I don’t deserve it, so I don’t need to worry about it happening to me.”
― John Green, Everything Is Tuberculosis: The History and Persistence of Our Deadliest Infection

“But honesty was a dull blade to take into a knife fight with Richard Nixon -- who was simply willing to lie.”
― Rick Perlstein, Nixonland: The Rise of a President and the Fracturing of America

“I find it interesting that even here, in the supposedly pure world of science, we feel the weight of historical forces pressing in upon discovery. Our desire to create outsiders, the competition for resources among communities that would be better off cooperating, and our long history of warfare all come together in this moment of discovery.”
― John Green, Everything Is Tuberculosis: The History and Persistence of Our Deadliest Infection

“Over time, we all become committed to a version of the story of our lives. Simplification and repetition solidify the account, and we tend to stick with that identity. But that is old news.”
― Bob Woodward, The Secret Man: The Story of Watergate's Deep Throat