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128 voters
JoAnna
https://www.goodreads.com/annaojjoanna
The conviction was growing in me that the besetting problem was our culture’s blindness to the distinction between the tool and the automatic machine. Everyone tended to treat them alike, as neutral agents of human intention. But machines
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“Even at his age he knew that there are basically two categories of people in a society: those who have, and those who have not. But according to the egalitarian principles of any communist society, those 'haves' should share with the 'have nots.' And because there is not much to share anyway, in the end that egalitarianism boils down to the equal distribution of poverty.”
― Café Europa: Life After Communism
― Café Europa: Life After Communism
“If you asked a child riding a broomstick what it was doing, the child would answer, without hesitation: 'I am riding a horse.' For that child, a stick is a horse. It is as if by merely calling something by another name, you are able to transform it into what you want it to be. By usurping God's power, you create an illusion of an instant Paradise. And no one has yet told the infant Eastern Europe that a wooden stick is not a horse.”
― Café Europa: Life After Communism
― Café Europa: Life After Communism
“He was not yet in the Church, but already a sin without a name had occurred to him. Ordinarily, the thought might give him pleasure. He remembered Nunes saying that a man must come into the Church on his own intellectual level. And in a horror, remote but clear, saw that the more intelligent a man was, the more various the sins he was capable of committing.”
― Dayspring
― Dayspring
“Nobody would doubt for one moment that my husband is a rich foreigner - why in the world would I marry a poor one? My marriage also means that I have escaped the common destiny of my people: the war, poverty, insecurity, unemployment, disappointment, political confusion, low wages, and the feeling that time is running out fast and you can't be certain if the future will bring anything better.”
― Café Europa: Life After Communism
― Café Europa: Life After Communism
“Faced with their confused glances and naive questions, I saw that there indeed was, between the writers and that public, however benevolent and sympathetic, a visible barrier. The audience simply did not have enough background information to comprehend what the writers sitting in front of them on the podium were saying.
Confronted with such a lack of understanding, I felt that I had no other choice but to hang on to 'my' group, the writers from Eastern Europe. At least they knew what I was talking about; at least we understood each other's problems, if that was of any comfort to a single one of us. And in any case, even if I had loudly screamed that I didn't want to belong to any group at all, the audience would have put me with them. Perhaps for the first time I became aware of how tired I was of constantly being pushed back into 'my place' every time I made an attempt to break out of it.”
― Café Europa: Life After Communism
Confronted with such a lack of understanding, I felt that I had no other choice but to hang on to 'my' group, the writers from Eastern Europe. At least they knew what I was talking about; at least we understood each other's problems, if that was of any comfort to a single one of us. And in any case, even if I had loudly screamed that I didn't want to belong to any group at all, the audience would have put me with them. Perhaps for the first time I became aware of how tired I was of constantly being pushed back into 'my place' every time I made an attempt to break out of it.”
― Café Europa: Life After Communism
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NTLTRC will help you find your love of Classcis! Find intrigue, well-developed characters, prose that is complex and beautiful, compelling stories tha ...more
JoAnna’s 2025 Year in Books
Take a look at JoAnna’s Year in Books, including some fun facts about their reading.
9,776 books
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45 friends
716 books
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141 friends
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306 friends
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132 friends
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4 friends
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