East West Notes

“In dark times, the definition of good art would seem to be art that locates and applies CPR to those elements of what's human and magical that still live and glow despite the times' darkness. Really good fiction could have as dark a worldview as it wished, but it'd find a way both to depict this world and to illuminate the possibilities for being alive and human in it.”
― David Foster Wallace

“But on one occasion he was lost for words. 'If it's all as bad as you describe,' asked an inconspicuous young man at the end of one of the lectures, 'then why did you choose to become a Gypsy?' His image of Gypsies had marked them as a mere lifestyle, a fashion, a brand.”
― Yaron Matras, I Met Lucky People: The Story of the Romani Gypsies

“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?”
― Yaron Matras, I Met Lucky People: The Story of the Romani Gypsies

“But while the imaginations of other people will carry them away to form wrong judgements of our conduct, and to decide on it by slight appearances, one's happiness must in some measure be always at the mercy of chance.”
― Jane Austen, Sense and Sensibility