Andrew Jalbert

“As is so often the case with the dreams we had when we were young, most are slowly eroded away by time, circumstance, or reason until their remnants are so faint, we don’t seriously consider chasing after them anymore.”
― Andrew Jalbert, Back on Bonaire: Rediscovering Diver's Paradise as a Father

“Well, I’d hate you to use this on me,’ said Vimes, picking a strange instrument like a couple of paddles tied with string. Lawn sighed. ‘Sergeant, there are no circumstances where the things you’re holding could possibly be used on you,’ he said, his hands working busily. ‘They are . . . of a feminine nature.’ ‘For the seamstresses?’ said Vimes, putting the pliers down in a hurry. ‘Those things? No, the ladies of the night take pride these days in never requiring that sort of thing. My work with them is more of, shall we say, a preventative nature.’ ‘Teaching them to use thimbles, that sort of thing?’ said Vimes. ‘Yes, it’s amazing how far you can push a metaphor, isn’t it . . .”
― Terry Pratchett, Night Watch

“A few conclusions become clear when we understand this: that our most cruel failure in how we treat the sick and the aged is the failure to recognize that they have priorities beyond merely being safe and living longer; that the chance to shape one’s story is essential to sustaining meaning in life; that we have the opportunity to refashion our institutions, our culture, and our conversations in ways that transform the possibilities for the last chapters of everyone’s lives.”
― Atul Gawande, Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End