Quotes from The Coming Plague: Newly Emerging Diseases in a World Out of Balance

“In 1982 President Ronald Reagan called for a war on drugs: by 1990 more men were in federal prisons on drug charges alone than had comprised the entire 1980 federal prison population for all crimes combined.”
― quote from The Coming Plague: Newly Emerging Diseases in a World Out of Balance

“In 1980 the Latin American nations collectively were receiving from their external creditors—major banks, the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank—about $11 billion more than they were losing in capital transfers back to wealthy-nation interests. But by 1985 these nations would be losing $35 billion more a year in capital transfers to North America and Europe than they received in loans and investments.41”
― quote from The Coming Plague: Newly Emerging Diseases in a World Out of Balance

“Only mosquito can save Nigeria. Only mosquito can save South Africa. Only mosquito can save Zimbabwe Only mosquito can save Namibia. Only mosquito can save Africa. Only malaria can save Africa. Only yellow fever can save Africa.”
― quote from The Coming Plague: Newly Emerging Diseases in a World Out of Balance

“According to official Soviet statistics submitted to the World Health Organization in the 1970s, virtually every imaginable infectious disease was on the decline or had disappeared, thanks to communist policies. It was widely believed in international health circles at the time that these statistics were wholly fabricated. 9”
― quote from The Coming Plague: Newly Emerging Diseases in a World Out of Balance

“Consider the difference in size between some of the very tiniest and the very largest creatures on Earth. A small bacterium weights as little as 0.00000000001 gram. A blue whale weighs about 100,000,000 grams. Yet a bacterium can kill a whale … . Such is the adaptability and versatility of microorganisms as compared with humans and other so-called “higher” organisms, that they will doubtless continue to colonise and alter the face of the Earth long after we and the rest of our cohabitants have left the stage forever. Microbes, not macrobes, rule the world. —Bernard Dixon, 1994”
― quote from The Coming Plague: Newly Emerging Diseases in a World Out of Balance

“The city of Strasbourg alone savagely slew 16,000 of its Jewish residents, blaming them for spreading the Black Death.10”
― quote from The Coming Plague: Newly Emerging Diseases in a World Out of Balance

“A new global iatrogenic form of malaria was emerging—“iatrogenic” meaning created as a result of medical treatment. In its well-meaning zeal to treat the world’s malaria scourge, humanity had created a new epidemic.”
― quote from The Coming Plague: Newly Emerging Diseases in a World Out of Balance

“Besides, there wasn’t much the lab could tell a physician in 1940 that a well-trained, observant doctor couldn’t determine independently.”
― quote from The Coming Plague: Newly Emerging Diseases in a World Out of Balance

Popular quotes

“Phoebe realized how very wrong she’d been about this house, this family. It was far darker, more dangerous than the places she’d grown up in. In the dingy little apartments her mother rented, everything was out in the open. Their lives were dirty and squalid, but they didn’t pretend to be anything else. Here, things seemed so normal, so perfect, but it was all a deception.”
― Jennifer McMahon, quote from Don't Breathe a Word

“[...] I look in the mirror every day, when I brush my teeth or wash my face or comb my hair. It's just I tend to look at myself in pieces and avoid joining them up all together. I don't know why; it just feels safer that way.

But tonight I force myself to look at the whole thing. And suddenly I see how the bits and pieces add up to someone I'm not familiar with, someone I never intended to be.”
― Kathleen Tessaro, quote from Elegance

“My Dad says that we're the meanest to the ones we love because we know they'll still love us.”
― Delphine de Vigan, quote from No and Me

“Докато си мислех така, появиха се миризмите и зловонията. Всичките. Гонеха се, отстъпваха си място, бягаха и се връщаха: миризмата на тераса с гълъби , и зловонието на белина, което опознах що за зловоние е, след като се ожених. И миризмата на кръв, която беше като предизвестие за миризмата на смъртта. И миризмата на сяра от ракетите и фишеците – тогава на площад „Диамант“, и миризмата на хартия от хартиените цветя, и миризмата на суха зеленина, която се ронеше по земята и образуваше килим от дребни листенца, които бяха зеленината, избягала от клонката. И силната миризма на морето. Погладих очите си с ръка. Питах се защо зловонията се наричат зловония, а миризмите – миризми и защо да не може да се казва зловония на миризмите и миризми на зловонията, и тогава се появи миризмата на Антони, когато беше бъден и после миризмата на Антони, когато спеше. – бях казал на Кимет, че може би дървоядите вместо да работят отвън навътре, работят отвътре навън и през кръглите дупчици си показват главите и се замислят за белите, които вършат. – И миризмата на децата, когато бяха малки – на мляко и на лиги, на прясно мляко и на вкиснато мляко. – Госпожа Енрикета ми беше казала, че имаме няколко живота, преплетени един в друг, но смърт или женитба, понякога, не винаги, ги разделя и истинският живот, освободен от всякакви връзки с онези няколко лоши живота, с които е обвързан, може да живее, както би трябвало да живее винаги, ако онези няколко лоши живота го бяха оставили на мира. Казваше още, че те се карат и ни измъчват, а ние нищо не знаем, как то не знаем нито за работата на сърцето, нито за голямото вълнение на червата… И миризмата на чаршафите, по б рали моето тяло и тялото на Антони, онази миризма на уморен чаршаф, който всмуква миризмата на човека. И миризмата на косите върху възглавницата, и миризмата на всички тези боклучета, които краката оставят в края на леглото, и миризмата на носените дрехи, оставени през нощта на някой стол… И миризмата на зърното, на картофите и на бутилката със сода каустик… Дръжката на ножа беше дървена, закована с три пирончета със сплескани глави, за да не може никога повече да се откачи от острието.”
― Mercè Rodoreda, quote from The Time of the Doves

“The way my heart raced like I was being chased through the woods even though I wasn't scared at all.”
― Tricia Rayburn, quote from Siren

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BookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.

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