Today it seems to me that my whole life was nothing but a string of those small near misses

“Today it seems to me that my whole life was nothing but a string of those small near misses: a race whose result we know beforehand but in which we fail to bet on the winner.” - Jean-Dominique Bauby

Jean-Dominique Bauby quote from The Diving Bell and the Butterfly. Bauby was a French journalist, author and editor who suffered a massive stroke in 1995 that left him with locked-in syndrome - a rare neurological condition that left his mind clear and alert but his body completely paralyzed. He could not move a muscle except for his left eyelid.