“But it’s not fair. You shouldn’t be the only one —” “Fair?” Kai asks, raising one eyebrow. “Of course it’s not fair. We’re in one of the richest cities in the world, and there are people starving in the streets, businessmen spending thousands of yuan to cheat on their wives and feeling generous for giving a few coins to a beggar. You think anyone cares about fair?” “You do,” Eli points out. “I do.” “Oh, good,” Kai says, “two people in a city of millions. Truly encouraging, I look forward to seeing how we single-handedly turn years of corruption and systemic injustice around.” CorruptionCynicismFairnessSystemic Failure Book:After the Dragons Source: After the Dragons
“Back when the Europeans came to convert people, they saw our traditional cures, the ginseng and qi charts, and they couldn't understand it, thought it was just superstition and old wives' tales - and yes, a lot of it was that, but look at them now! Studying the antioxidant properties of cinnamon and putting goji berries in every other thing they eat .... Curiosity can lead in fascinating directions, and it is occasionally useful to walk off the path of standard procedure.” Scientific ResearchProcedure Book:After the Dragons Source: After the Dragons
“That's the way with anything worth doing, isn't it? You work and work, and there's always a risk of whether it's enough or not, of whether any of this is going to make a difference or if it's just months sunk into another hopeless case. But you do the work. Because it's what you can do. Because you may never know if it means anything, but on the chance that it does, you can't live with yourself if you don't try, can you?” InspirationalPerserverenceNot Quitting Book:After the Dragons Source: After the Dragons