30 Quotes by Elisabeth Tova Bailey

While illness keeps me always aware of my mortality, I realize that what matters most is not that I survive, nor even that my species survives, but that life itself continues to evolve. As the Holocene mass extinction rushes on, which species will be left? And what new creatures will evolve that we cannot now imagine – for what creature could ever have imagined us?

Time unused and only endured still vanishes, as if time itself is starving, and each day is swallowed whole, leaving no crumbs, no memory, no trace at all.

They would worry about wearing me out, but I could also see that I was a reminder of all they feared: chance, uncertainty, loss and the sharp edge of mortality.

The snail and I were both living in altered landscapes not of our choosing; I figured we shared a sense of loss and displacement. E.

The life of a snail is as full of tasty food, comfortable beds of sorts, and a mix of pleasant and not-so-pleasant adventures as that of anyone I know.

What majesty is in a creeping Snail, what reflection, what earnestness, what timidity and yet at the same time what firm confidence!

One has to respect the preferences of another creature, no matter its size, and I did so gladly.

Those of us with illnesses are the holders of the silent fears of those with good health.

We had each journeyed to this office from our own distant planet of illness. Though strangers, we became instant, silent companions. We were here for the same purpose: to describe our alien experience to the doctor in hope of survival advice.