76 Quotes by Rose George

The right way to do any social work is to work until you're not needed anymore.

There is nothing like it. It is stardust and the sea. The iron in our blood comes from the death of supernovas, like all iron on our planet.5 This bright red liquid—brighter in the arteries, when it is transporting oxygen around the body from the heart, duller in the veins, when it is not—contains salt and water, like the sea we possibly came from.

I like that Maersk is a first name. It's like a massive global corporation named Derek.

There are no voice pipes or telegraphs, as Titanic had, and barely any brass, but so many beeps and screens that I wonder if ships will soon be able to drive themselves.

The days of languorous shore leave are long gone. Overnight stays are unheard of and sailor towns a distant memory. In better ports, seafarers head for a seamen's mission.

Perhaps we believe that everything travels by air, or magically and instantaneously like information (which is actually anchored by cables on the seabed), not by hefty ships that travel more slowly than senior citizens drive.

His death certificate says he died first of pneumonia and secondly of Alzheimer's disease. They could have listed another cause of death: a refusal to properly care for dementia sufferers, even when they are violent, and an equal inability to care for their carers. My dad died of dementia, but also because dying was the easiest way to treat him.

Rules governing defecation, hygiene, and pollution exist in every culture at every period in history. It may in fact be the foundation of civilization: What is toilet training if not the first attempt to turn a child into an acceptable member of society?

Diarrhea, 90 percent of which is caused by food and water contaminated by excrement, kills a child every fifteen seconds. That's more than AIDS, malaria, or measles, combined. Human feces are an impressive weapon of mass destruction.