Last week, I read a book published last year, Station Eleven, and I had the pleasant experience of being drawn into a story and losing sleep until I finished it. I’ve included a few passages that I’ve enjoyed thinking about.

So this is how it ends, she thought, when the call was over, and she was soothed by the banality of it. You get a phone call in a foreign country, and just like that the man with whom you once thought you’d grow old has departed from this earth. (30)

Because survival is insufficient. (58)

These people you coach, do they ever actually change? I mean, in any kind of lasting, notable way? (162)

Don’t think of that unspeakable decision, to keep the jet sealed rather than expose a packed airport to a fatal contagion. Don’t think about what enforcing that decision may have required. Don’t think about those last few hours on board. (249-50)

[S]he could have told him what she knew: it is possible to survive this but not unaltered. (296)