“In that moment, I could only think of Samuel Beckett, the metaphors that, in those twins, reached their terminal limit: “One day we were born, one day we shall die, the same day, the same second... Birth astride of a grave, the light gleams an instant, then it’s night once more.” I had stood next to “the grave digger” with his “forceps.” What had those lives amounted to?”

“In that moment, I could only think of Samuel Beckett, the metaphors that, in those twins, reached their terminal limit: “One day we were born, one day we shall die, the same day, the same second... Birth astride of a grave, the light gleams an instant, then it’s night once more.” I had stood next to “the grave digger” with his “forceps.” What had those lives amounted to?”

— Paul Kalanithi