How to Tell When We Will Die Quotes

“How privileged are you if you first require hope in order to act?”
― Johanna Hedva, How to Tell When We Will Die: On Pain, Disability, and Doom

“There are as many kinds of light as there are darknesses. I want to find and hold and tell you about as many as I can.”
― Johanna Hedva, How to Tell When We Will Die: On Pain, Disability, and Doom

“We tell ourselves that our personalities are defined by our brilliance, curiosity, orneriness, and passion, not our panic, brain fog, or fatigue. We speak of strengths and weaknesses—it’s how we categorize everything—and we never get creative with these. We count among our strengths our strength, and among our weaknesses, our weakness, and the only radicality we can yield to this binary is to invert it, to count what is usually considered weak as maybe some other kind of strength.”
― Johanna Hedva, How to Tell When We Will Die: On Pain, Disability, and Doom

“Da bi preživjeli, mi sebi pričamo priče koje ne uključuju bolest. Naši heroji umiru na bojišnici, ne od kronične boli. Dijareja nikada ne dospijeva u mit. U tragedijama nema menstrualnih grčeva. Sindrom iritabilnog crijeva je začudno odsutan iz žanra trilera. Patnja ima svrhu, slavodobitna je, plemenita, zaslužena, autoritativna – Ajax pada na svoj mač, Julija uzima otrov, Jane Eyre umire u vatri, Prometej plaća za svoje prijestupe jetrom. Nisu uzrokovane zemaljskim neugodnostima poput izostanka zdravstvenog osiguranja, krivim dijagnozama, dugim redovima u apotekama, prestanku protoka vremena u čekaonicama, ili simptomima koji zahtijevaju da ležimo u nepomičnom položaju dok sati i sati puze.”
― Johanna Hedva, How to Tell When We Will Die: On Pain, Disability, and Doom

“My editor asks, 'Why does it need to be painful?'

My partner asks, 'Why do you fight so much?'

My audience asks, 'But where is hope in the darkness of your work?'

My ancestors ask, 'Why do you make your hands claw around the lie of your solitude?'

My government asks, 'Why won't you let us use your body to feed the worms?'

I ask, 'What can I write down?”
― Johanna Hedva, How to Tell When We Will Die: On Pain, Disability, and Doom

“Ajax falls on his sword. Juliet drinks the poison. Jane Eyre is undone by fire. Prometheus pays for his transgression with his liver.”
― Johanna Hedva, How to Tell When We Will Die: On Pain, Disability, and Doom