Tracy Kidder Quotes & Sayings

I do believe that enduring geological features are important, though I don't think I can be clear about exactly why. — Tracy Kidder

I think I wanted to see how complicated things happen," West said years later. "There's some notion of control, it seems to me, that you can derive in a world full of confusion if you at least understand how things get put together. Even if you can't under stand every little part, how infernal machines get put together. — Tracy Kidder

As they say, the first step in fixing something is getting it to break. — Tracy Kidder

How could a just God permit great misery? The Haitian peasants answered with a proverb: "Bondye konn bay, men li pa konn separe," in literal translation, "God gives but doesn't share." This meant ... God gives us humans everything we need to flourish, but he's not the one who's supposed to divvy up the loot. That charge was laid upon us. — Tracy Kidder

[Farmer] went to dozens of American and Canadian universities and colleges, preaching his O for the P [Preferential Option for the Poor] gospel, and to South Africa, where he debated a World Bank official at an international AIDS conference. "Africans must learn to curb their sexual appetites," the banker remarked, and Farmer replied, "I want to talk about other bankers, not the World Bankers, but bankers in general. My suspicion is they're not getting a lot of sex, because they spend a lot of time screwing the poor. — Tracy Kidder

At age twenty-six, Virchow wrote passionately that terrible social conditions in an impoverished part of Germany called Upper Silesia were the cause of a malaria and dysentery epidemic. His recommendation to the German government: if it wanted to do something about the epidemic, it needed to end the malnutrition, overcrowding, and poor hygiene. Better yet, he added, allow for a full and unlimited democracy in Upper Silesia. — Tracy Kidder

The only real nation is humanity — Tracy Kidder

I want my prose to be as clear as a pane of glass. — Tracy Kidder

One time I listened to Farmer give a talk on HIV to a class at the Harvard School of Public Health, and in the midst of reciting data, he mentioned the Haitian phrase "looking for life, destroying life," Then he explained, "It's an expression Haitians use if a poor woman selling mangoes falls off a truck and dies." I felt as if for that moment I could see a little way into his mind, It seemed like a place of hyperconnectivity, At moments like that, I thought that what he wanted was to erase both time and geography, connecting all parts of his life and tying them instrumentally to a world in which he saw intimate, inescapable connections between the gleaming corporate offices of Paris and New York and a legless man lying on the mud floor of a hut in the remotest part of remote Haiti. Of all the world's errors, he seemed to feel, the most fundamental was the "erasing" of people, the "hiding away" of suffering. "My big struggle is how people can not care, erase, not remember. — Tracy Kidder

god gives but does not share" --haitian proverb — Tracy Kidder

In order to go on with our lives, we are always capable of making the ominous into the merely strange. — Tracy Kidder

I'm going to a commune in Vermont and will deal with no unit of time shorter than a season. — Tracy Kidder

What interests me is trying to catch the reflection of the human being on the page. I'm interested in how ordinary people live their lives. — Tracy Kidder

Writing is revision. All prose responds to work. — Tracy Kidder

One winter night, at his home, while he was stirring up the logs in his fireplace, he muttered, "Computers are irrelevant." Building — Tracy Kidder

Things were here before you and will be here after you're gone. The geographic features, especially, give you a sense of your own place in the world and in time. — Tracy Kidder

What I like about non-fiction is that it covers such a huge territory. The best non-fiction is also creative. — Tracy Kidder

I tell beginning readers to read a lot and write a lot. If you want to write a book, find a subject that's really worth the time and effort you'll put in. — Tracy Kidder

I've gotta keep life and computers separate, or else I'm gonna go mad. — Tracy Kidder

I wrote a novel about the combat experiences I didn't have in Vietnam. — Tracy Kidder

So many people, he thought, don't listen to the content of what you say but only to the noises you make. — Tracy Kidder

You can write about anything, and if you write well enough, even the reader with no intrinsic interest in the subject will become involved. — Tracy Kidder

Too much protocol. — Tracy Kidder

The goofiness of radicals thinking they have to dress in Guatemalan peasant clothes. The poor don't want you to look like them. They want you to dress in a suit and go get them food and water. Comma. — Tracy Kidder

I have fought the long defeat and brought other people on to fight the long defeat, and I'm not going to stop because we keep losing. Now I actually think sometimes we may win. I don't dislike victory ... You know, people from our background-like you, like most PIH-ers, like me-we're used to being on a victory team, and actually what we're really trying to do in PIH is to make common cause with the losers. Those are two very different things. We want to be on the winning team, but at the risk of turning our backs on the losers, no, it's not worth it. So you fight the long defeat. — Tracy Kidder

Little sleep, no investment portfolio, no family around, no hot water. On an evening a few days after arriving in Cange, I wondered aloud what compensation he got for these various hardships. He told me, "If you're making sacrifices, unless you're automatically following some rule, it stands to reason that you're trying to lessen some psychic discomfort. So, for example, if I took steps to be a doctor for those who don't have medical care, it could be regarded as a sacrifice, but it could also be regarded as a way to deal with ambivalence." He went on, and his voice changed a little. He didn't bristle, but his tone had an edge: "I feel ambivalent about selling my services in a world where some can't buy them. You can feel ambivalent about that, because you should feel ambivalent. Comma." This was for me one of the first of many encounters with Farmer's — Tracy Kidder

You may not see the ocean, but right now we are in the middle of the ocean, and we have to keep swimming. — Tracy Kidder

I usually write about ordinary people and ordinary things, but Paul Farmer is the least ordinary person I've ever met ... He's the leader of a small group of people who hope to cure a sick world, and I hope my book can help in some small way. — Tracy Kidder

The view reminded of the Haitain proverb "Beyond mountains there are mountains" which meant that when you'd solved one problem, you couldn't rest because you had to go on and solve the next. — Tracy Kidder

In the process Paul laid out a comprehensive theory of poverty, of a world designed by the elites of all nations to serve their own ends, the pieces of the design enshrined in ideologies, which erased the histories of how things came to be as they were. — Tracy Kidder

Among a coward's weapons, cynicism is the nastiest of all — Tracy Kidder

I think Farmer taps into a universal anxiety and also into a fundamental place in some troubled consciences, into what he calls "ambivalence," the often unacknowledged uneasiness that some of the fortunate feel about their place in the world, the thing he once told me he designed his life to avoid. — Tracy Kidder

Sure," I said. "But some people would ask, 'How can you expect others to replicate what you're doing here?' What would be your answer to that?" He turned back and, smiling sweetly, said, "Fuck you." Then, in a stentorian voice, he corrected himself: "No. I would say, 'The objective is to inculcate in the doctors and nurses the spirit to dedicate themselves to the patients, and especially to having an outcome-oriented view of TB.' " He was grinning, his face alight. He looked very young just then. "In other words, 'Fuck you. — Tracy Kidder

I stared at the faces of the dead students. "You know, Zacharie, just looking at them, I can't tell you which ones were Tutsis, which Hutus." "Exactly!" said Deo in a loud whisper. Evidently, one was supposed to whisper here. "And neither could the killers!" "The killers couldn't see the difference, too," whispered Zacharie. "So they ask. Because they can't tell. We are the same people. — Tracy Kidder

It is not a large exaggeration to say that everything else in a computer exists in order to bring information swiftly to the ALU for manipulation; and for the ALU, adding is the mechanical equivalent of breathing. But — Tracy Kidder

Most teachers have little control over school policy or curriculum or choice of texts or special placement of students, but most have a great deal of autonomy inside the classroom. To a degree shared by only a few other occupations, such as police work, public education rests precariously on the skill and virtue of the people at the bottom of the institutional pyramid. — Tracy Kidder

Rasala had named the two new prototypes Tartis and Gallifrey, after the home planet and time machine of Dr. Who, the protagonist of a science fiction show on public TV. — Tracy Kidder

The hardest thing was learning to write. I was 13, and the only writing I had done was for Social Studies. It consisted of copying passages right out of the encyclopedia. — Tracy Kidder

Don't worry about being worried. You're heading out on an adventure and you can always change your mind along the way and try something else. — Tracy Kidder

And I can imagine Farmer saying he doesn't care if no one else is willing to follow their example. He's still going to make these hikes, he'd insist, because if you say that seven hours is too long to walk for two families of patients, you're saying that their lives matter less than some others', and the idea that some lives matter less is the root of all that's wrong with the world. — Tracy Kidder

That's when I feel most alive, he told me once on an airplane, when I'm helping people. — Tracy Kidder

The combination of domesticity and wildness - that's a deep expression. — Tracy Kidder

It seemed as though Margaret hovered near Alice, aware of Alice when Alice didn't seem to be aware of Margaret. — Tracy Kidder

You do the right thing even if it makes you feel bad. The purpose of life is not to be happy but to be worthy of happiness. — Tracy Kidder

Children get dealt grossly unequal hands, but that is all the more reason to treat them equally in school, Chris thought. "I think the cruelest form of prejudice is ... if I ever said, 'Clarence is poor, so I'll expect less of him than Alice.' Maybe he won't do what Alice does. But I want his best." She knew that precept wasn't as simple as it sounded. Treating children equally often means treating them very differently. But it also means bringing the same moral force to bear on all of them, saying, in effect, to Clarence that you matter as much as Alice and won't get away with not working, and to Alice that you won't be allowed to stay where you are either. — Tracy Kidder

I felt vigorous and cheered by borrowed popularity. — Tracy Kidder

Paul Farmer has helped to build amazing health care system in one of the poorest areas of Haiti. He founded Partners in Health, which serves the destitute and the sick in many parts of the world from Haiti to Boston and from Russia to Peru. — Tracy Kidder

When you burn out, you lose enthusiasm. I always loved computers. All of a sudden I just didn't care. It was, all of a sudden, a job. — Tracy Kidder

If you had an essentially happy childhood, that tends to dwell with you. — Tracy Kidder

Outside, the afternoon sun was an orange sliver on an icy horizon. — Tracy Kidder

The ocean doesn't care about you. It makes your boat feel tiny. The oceans are great promoters of religion, or at least of humility-but not in everyone. — Tracy Kidder

Continuity is one of the things I like about New England. — Tracy Kidder

Attempts at imitation would put the emphasis where it didn't belong. The goal was to improve the lives of others, not oneself. — Tracy Kidder

At first, I spend about four hours a day writing. Toward the end of a book, I spend up to 16 hours a day on it, because all I want to do is make it good and get it done. — Tracy Kidder

I know that to write you have to have stories you want to tell. You have to keep your mind alive, and you have to work hard. — Tracy Kidder

In the early days, computers inspired widespread awe and the popular press dubbed them giant brains. In fact, the computer's power resembled that of a bulldozer; it did not harness subtlety, though subtlety went into its design. — Tracy Kidder

I do believe in God. I think God has given so much power to people, and intelligence, and said, 'Well, you are on your own. Maybe I'm tired, I need a nap. You are mature. Why don't you look after yourselves?' And I think He's been sleeping too much. — Tracy Kidder

If you live in the same small place long enough, something you don't like is bound to happen. — Tracy Kidder

I am grateful to Stacy Schiff first of all because she can write a sentence-because she offers us her scholarship with wit, clarity, and grace. Once again, she has done what only the best writers can do: she has made the world new, again. — Tracy Kidder

People say you can't teach writing, but I think that's nonsense. — Tracy Kidder

Virchow was the perfect role model for anyone who wanted to change the world, or at least lessen the inequality between the rich and poor. One of Farmer's favorite Virchow quotes was "The physicians are the natural attorneys of the poor, and the social problems should largely be solved by them." Virchow viewed the world in a way that made sense to Farmer, his vision a comprehensive one that included pathology - the study of disease - with social medicine, politics, and anthropology. Farmer, — Tracy Kidder

Paul's face grew serious. 'I think whenever a people has enormous resources, it is easy for them to call themselves democratic. I think of myself more as a physician than an American. We belong to the nation of those who care for the sick. Americans are lazy democrats, and it is my belief, as someone who shares the same nationality as [a Russian doctor], I think the rich can always call themselves democratic, but the sick people are not among the rich [ ... ] I'm very proud to be an American. I have many opportunities because I'm American. I can travel freely through the world, I can start projects, but that's called privilege, not democracy. — Tracy Kidder

The last thing I want to do is expend my energy trying to convince my own coworkers. — Tracy Kidder

I always want to write something better than the last book. — Tracy Kidder

On the contrary, a company was more likely to asphyxiate on its own success. — Tracy Kidder

He would come to feel that history, even more than memory, distorts the present of the past by focusing on big events and making one forget that most people living in the present are otherwise preoccupied, that for them omens often don't exist. — Tracy Kidder

I never planned on doing a book about Paul Farmer or his organization. I met him in Haiti when I was on a magazine assignment. It's almost like his story sort of fell in my lap. — Tracy Kidder

He sniffed, and said as others had before him and others no doubt would again, I have learned never to say, 'Never again. — Tracy Kidder

When I select a topic, it's usually a commitment of two to three years of my life. — Tracy Kidder

No one keeps track of the hours we work," said Ken Holberger. He grinned. "That's not altruism on Data General's part. If anybody kept track, they'd have to pay us a hell of a lot more than they do." Yet it is a fact, not entirely lost on management consultants, that some people would rather work twelve hours a day of their own choosing than eight that are prescribed. Provided, of course, that the work is interesting. That was the main thing. — Tracy Kidder

I think if the writing comes too easily, it shows - it's usually hard to read. — Tracy Kidder

When writers stop believing in their own stories, readers tend to sense it. — Tracy Kidder

Being a professional writer is not an easy way to make a living. — Tracy Kidder

By signing up for the project you agreed to do whatever was necessary for success. — Tracy Kidder

Many people find it easy to imagine unseen webs of malevolent conspiracy in the world, and they are not always wrong. But there is also an innocence that conspires to hold humanity together, and it is made of people who can never fully know the good that they have done. — Tracy Kidder

How to preside over your own internal disorder? Finding the "I" that can represent the pack of you is the first challenge of the memoirist. — Tracy Kidder

Obviously, computers have made differences. They have fostered the development of spaceships- as well as a great increase in junk mail. — Tracy Kidder

In a very basic way, a prominent landmark such as Mt. Holyoke tells you where you are. They let you know that you're not the first person in a place. — Tracy Kidder

Curing yourself of obsessive compulsive disorder by going to a strip club is pretty strange. — Tracy Kidder