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Before you can kill a demon, you have to be able to say it's name. Names have power. While the word Alzheimer's terrorizes us, it has power over us. When we are prepared to discuss it aloud, we might have power over it. It's thought of as a mental illness and it is a physical illness, affecting the brain. There should be no shame in having it, yet people still don't talk about it
Terry Pratchett
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Interpretation

What this quote means

Understanding and naming our fears can empower us to confront them.

This quote by Terry Pratchett emphasizes the significance of naming and discussing Alzheimer's disease to diminish its fear and stigma. By acknowledging this illness openly, rather than allowing it to be a taboo subject, we can reclaim our power and foster better conversations about mental and physical health.

Themes

Alzheimer'SPowerDiscussMental IllnessStigma

In practice

Example use cases

In a public health conference discussing mental health, this quote can be used to stress the importance of open dialogue about Alzheimer's.

More from Terry Pratchett

And then Jack chopped down what was the world's last beanstalk, adding murder and ecological terrorism to the theft, enticement, and trespass charges already mentioned, and all the giant's children didn't have a daddy anymore. But he got away with it and lived happily ever after, without so much as a guilty twinge about what he had done...which proves that you can be excused for just about anything if you are a hero, because no one asks inconvenient questions.
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They've got something they do it with, I think it's called a mocracy, and it means everyone in the whole country can say who the new Tyrant is. One man ... one vet. ... Everyone has ... the vet. Except for women, of course. And children. And criminals. And slaves. And stupid people. And people of foreign extraction. And people disapproved of for, er, various reasons. And lots of other people. But everyone apart from them. It's a very enlightened civilization.
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Geography is just physics slowed down, with a couple of trees stuck in it.
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You can't trample infidels when you're a tortoise. I mean, all you could do is give them a meaningful look.
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Any fool could be a witch with a runic knife, but it took skill to be one with an apple corer.
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People look down on stuff like geography and meteorology, and not only because they're standing on one and being soaked by the other. They don't look quite like real science. But geography is only physics slowed down and with a few trees stuck on it, and meteorology is full of excitingly fashionable chaos and complexity. And summer isn't a time. It's a place as well. Summer is a moving creature and likes to go south for the winter.
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Quote by Terry Pratchett | QuoteProject