“When I hear that palliative care is the unit where people go before they die, instead of getting huffy, instead of explaining more or less patiently that we also treat pain in cases that don’t involve imminent death, instead of that, I answer in the affirmative, I smile my sweetest smile, I say yes, that’s right, good point, and then I add that you could in fact make the same claim about all the departments in the hospital, any hospital, because, all told, everything worth calling life is just the set of things we do before we die, isn’t it? And that, I can assure you, never fails to make an impression.”
— Eduardo Berti trans. Daniel Levin Becker | “Mireille Gosselin, Unit Manager” | An Ideal Presence | p. 90