“What do women who live in houses, wear traditional long skirts, speak Romani to their family members and are offended when somebody calls them 'Gypsies' have in common with women who live in caravans, wear shorts, use only the occasional Romani word and refer to themselves as 'Gypsies?' What does a Romani coppersmith in Bulgaria share with a Romani used-car dealer in Los Angeles? How can a Spanish musician of Gitano background feel represented by a Hungarian Romani member of the European Parliament?”
― I Met Lucky People: The Story of the Romani Gypsies
― I Met Lucky People: The Story of the Romani Gypsies
“She remembered her first-ever boyfriend of over thirty years ago, who told her he preferred smaller breasts than hers, while his hands were on her breasts, as if she’d find this interesting, as if women’s body parts were dishes on a menu and men were the goddamned diners.
This is what she said to that first boyfriend: “Sorry.”
This was her first boyfriend’s benevolent reply: “That’s okay.”
― Nine Perfect Strangers
This is what she said to that first boyfriend: “Sorry.”
This was her first boyfriend’s benevolent reply: “That’s okay.”
― Nine Perfect Strangers
“So entrenched is our fictional image of Gypsies that we often brush aside real-world experiences as a mirage when they contradict the picture that we have absorbed and internalized.”
― I Met Lucky People: The Story of the Romani Gypsies
― I Met Lucky People: The Story of the Romani Gypsies
“A process cannot be understood by stopping it. Understanding must move with the flow of the process, must join it and flow with it.”
― Dune
― Dune
“Once upon a time in the dead of winter in the Dakota Territory, Theodore Roosevelt took off in a makeshift boat down the Little Missouri River in pursuit of a couple of thieves who had stolen his prized rowboat. After several days on the river, he caught up and got the draw on them with his trusty Winchester, at which point they surrendered. Then Roosevelt set off in a borrowed wagon to haul the thieves cross-country to justice. They headed across the snow-covered wastes of the Badlands to the railhead at Dickinson, and Roosevelt walked the whole way, the entire 40 miles. It was an astonishing feat, what might be called a defining moment in Roosevelt’s eventful life. But what makes it especially memorable is that during that time, he managed to read all of Anna Karenina. I often think of that when I hear people say they haven’t time to read.”
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