Kathleen Daughety

“A study from New York's Mount Sinai Hospital found that genetic changes stemming from the trauma suffered by Holocaust survivors were capable of being passed on to their children. Our genes change all the time when chemical tags attach themselves to the DNA and turn genes on or off. The study found that some of these tags--found in the genes of those survivors -- were also found in their children. The changes led to an increased incidence of stress disorders. This passing down of environmentally altered genes is called *epigenetic inheritance.*”
― Nadia Owusu, Aftershocks

“The truth is that we all have ant years and grasshopper years - years in which we are able to prepare and save and years where we need a little extra help. Our true flaw lies not in failing to store up enough resources to cope with the grasshopper years, but in believing that each grasshopper year is an anomaly, visited only on us, due to our unique human failings.”
― Katherine May, Wintering: The Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult Times

“Plants and animals don’t fight the winter; they don’t pretend it’s not happening and attempt to carry on living the same lives that they lived in the summer. They prepare. They adapt. They perform extraordinary acts of metamorphosis to get them through. Winter is a time of withdrawing from the world, maximising scant resources, carrying out acts of brutal efficiency and vanishing from sight; but that’s where the transformation occurs. Winter is not the death of the life cycle, but its crucible.”
― Katherine May, Wintering: The Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult Times

“Write,” instructs Annie Dillard, “as if you were dying.” We are all terminal patients on this earth—the mystery is not “if” but “when” death appears in the plotline.”
― Suleika Jaouad, Between Two Kingdoms: A Memoir of a Life Interrupted