" You pick and choose who gets rescued and who doesn’t?” “Yes,” Bat Lady said. “Take Candy, for example.” That surprised me. “You know about Candy?” She didn’t bother replying. “If we had chosen to help her, the odds are that Candy would have ended up no better off. She has no skills, not much intelligence, and would never be able to be mainstreamed into school or society. She would probably have ended up back with Buddy Ray or someone similar.” “You can’t know that,” I said. “Of course you can’t know. But you play the odds. You save who you can and you mourn those you can’t. When you follow this calling, your heart gets ripped apart every day. You make the world better in increments, not grand designs. You make choices. Do you understand?” “Choices,” I said. “Yes.” “Like my father made a choice to leave the Abeona Shelter. Like my father didn’t want this life for me.” “Exactly, he made a choice.” Bat Lady looked up at me and tilted her head. “How did that work out for him?” I said nothing. “With "
― Harlan Coben , Shelter (Mickey Bolitar, #1)