" My hesitation not only comes from my staunch denial that I am ill at all, but from the knowledge that as soon as I tell people, everything will change. I won’t be me anymore. I’ll be someone who is dying. People will look at me in that awful sympathetic way and nobody will know what to say. They’ll tell me how dreadfully sorry they are and we’ll all feel crushingly awkward until it is me consoling them. I cannot bear it, and so my illness remains as silent as an unplayed gramophone record. "

― Hazel Gaynor , The Girl from the Savoy