fatsy

“I’m willing to walk in darkness if it keeps humans in the light.”
― Victoria Schwab, Our Dark Duet

“Communist Romania almost everything was owned by the state. Democratic Romania quickly privatised its assets, selling them at bargain prices to the ex-communists, who alone grasped what was happening and collaborated to feather each other’s nests. Government companies that controlled national infrastructure and natural resources were sold to former communist officials at end-of-season prices while the party’s foot soldiers bought houses and apartments for pennies. Ion Iliescu was elected president of Romania, while his colleagues became ministers, parliament members, bank directors and multimillionaires. The new Romanian elite that controls the country to this day is composed mostly of former communists and their families. The masses who
risked their necks in Timişoara and Bucharest settled for scraps, because they did not know how to cooperate and how to create an efficient organisation to look after their own interests.21”
― Yuval Noah Harari, Homo Deus: A History of Tomorrow

“You are easy to explain – even to you.  You may call yourself a soul if that pleases you, but what you are is a nexus of electromagnetic forces, so arranged that all the interconnections and interrelationships are exactly imitative of those of your brain in your Universe-existence – down to the smallest detail.  Therefore you have your capacity for thought, your memories, your personality.  It still seems to you that you are you.”
― Isaac Asimov, The Last Answer

“Bucharest is a faded old gal in a raggedy coat. Once called the “Little Paris of the East,” she has long lost her finery. A few parks and buildings dream of past grandeur, but the picture is spoiled by the concrete and steel mementoes of Communism on every side.”
― Vila Gingerich, White Horse to Bucharest: Lessons Romania Taught Us