Gone Before Goodbye

by Reese Witherspoon

You wonder what makes a hero? There’s altruism, sure. But there’s also ego and recklessness and thrill-seeking. We don’t fear danger. We fear normalcy.

Apollo Longevity is still active. Even now. Even after all that’s happened. That’s not a good thing.

in the days when disagreeing was considered a good thing, when differing viewpoints were welcomed because they challenged and honed your thinking rather than producing anger and scorn.

What do you call a longing for critical thinking and common sense and decency?

if you think our legal system is about truth or fairness or equality, you’re either not paying attention or delusional.

she hated to be in any situation where she wasn’t in control.

The dead stay by your side, as though you held on too hard as they tried to pull away and something had broken off.

Scratch the surface of a person doing good works, and you’ll find someone who fears the mundane and conventional.

The pain never goes away. The pain never lets you go. You just learn to live with it.

that sort of healable fragility, that vulnerability that draws in every woman who thinks they can fix him, but whatever is broken inside of him stayed broken.

asks, “Are you married?” Maggie feels the tears push into her eyes.

Why do I feel like Marc & Trace are both dead

“You made a promise! No contact with anyone!” “It’s not what you think.”

Omg her sisters app - she recreated her husband

“A griefbot is an artificial intelligence app that mimics a dead person via their digital footprint—for

I KNEW IT

you have an Alexa or Siri or some other smart speaker in your house? It hears you, records the data, and stores it in clouds. Your iPhone’s built-in microphone does the same. So does your home surveillance system and doorbell and motion detectors and monitoring feeds—they all spy on you and listen to every word you say, even when you think they are off.

Comforting

those first few seconds when you comprehend the awful truth—Stage One should actually be “total understanding”—are so devastating, so awful, so painful, so debilitating that your mind forces you to move on to denial in order to survive.

We were poor. Not poor like Americans. You Americans don’t really know poor. You have no idea what poor is.

Greed is not ‘I need more’—it’s the fear of losing what you already have. Of going back. So you hold on tighter and keep trying to climb up. Because that’s the only way you can go. Life won’t let you stand still. You are either on your way up or you’re on your way down. And you’ll do anything not to go down.”

That’s what we stupid humans do. We carry the seeds of our own self-destruction.

The other is Porkchop.

I just know Reese is who picked this name

So my question is, How far would you go to find him?” “As far as I have to,” Maggie says.

Gosh i love this book

the poor man wants to be rich, the rich man wants to be king, and the king ain’t satisfied until he rules everything.

“All comfort is false, when you think about it.

And you Americans especially have grown so lazy and stupid. You think you’d be healthier if you relied on your”—Ragoravich shakes his head as he says in pure disgust—“‘natural immunities.’ Please. Natural immunities. It makes me laugh.” His voice goes up an octave in mimicry: “‘Oh, we don’t need modern medicine, we just need to meditate and trust our “natural immunities” like in the old days!’ Bah. Do you know what the global life expectancy was in 1900? Thirty-seven years. Thirty-seven! That’s what your natural immunities got you.

Do you know what life expectancy is today? Seventy-three. Think about that. And do you know why? Of course you do. You’re an intelligent physician. We live longer because of modern medicine—antibiotics, vaccines, control of infectious disease, new treatments for cancer, stroke, and yes, cardiovascular disease. We live longer because we stopped relying on our ‘natural immunities.’”

Preach

The third surgeon, Maggie is told, is in the adjacent theater with the brain-dead heart donor.

Trace or marc.....