Felix Abt · 320 pages
Rating: (138 votes)
“When does a wife know that her husband is cheating on her? When he starts complaining about the lack of water as he wants to have two showers a week.” This was one of the many popular jokes.”
― Felix Abt, quote from A Capitalist in North Korea: My Seven Years in the Hermit Kingdom
“Yet skirts are getting shorter, and more women can be seen in Pyongyang now with high heels. The change must be shocking to people in the more conservative countryside, where high heels continue to be associated with prostitution.”
― Felix Abt, quote from A Capitalist in North Korea: My Seven Years in the Hermit Kingdom
“It’s a little-known story that bicycles played a big role in propping up North Korea’s informal and privatized economy, because they helped small traders shuffle goods between the manufacturers and markets. These bicycle riders, in turn, became an informal merchant class.”
― Felix Abt, quote from A Capitalist in North Korea: My Seven Years in the Hermit Kingdom
“The husband beats his wife,” she responded. “The neighbors don’t care, and even if they complained, the man would not change.”
― Felix Abt, quote from A Capitalist in North Korea: My Seven Years in the Hermit Kingdom
“One time an employee brought cakes to the office to celebrate her daughter’s passing the exam, whereas another coincidentally fell “sick” when her child repeatedly failed the entrance exams.”
― Felix Abt, quote from A Capitalist in North Korea: My Seven Years in the Hermit Kingdom
“To my amusement, a traffic sign prohibited ox carts from passing by revolutionary sites, out of fear that the oxen would defecate close to these venerated monuments. These strong, resilient, and patient animals weren’t merely shuffling goods along roads, but because of the limited mechanization and shortage of fuel they also plowed rice paddy fields. I got the impression that, unlike in China and Vietnam where every year is the year of a different animal, in North Korea every year was the Year of the Oxen.”
― Felix Abt, quote from A Capitalist in North Korea: My Seven Years in the Hermit Kingdom
“Achan gritted his teeth and recalled Sir Eagan's words. Love was not taking because you wanted, he'd said. Love was sacrifice.”
― Jill Williamson, quote from From Darkness Won
“Watching the cab speed off, Wahoo’s father looked forlorn. “It’s like she’s leaving us twice,” he remarked. “What are you talking about, Pop?” “I’m seein’ double, remember? There she goes—and there she goes again.”
― Carl Hiaasen, quote from Chomp
“No man should leave in the universe anything of which he is afraid.”
― G.K. Chesterton, quote from The Man Who Was Thursday
“At the end of the day, women are expected to hold up the world, not annihilate it.”
― Kim Gordon, quote from Girl in a Band
“A Governor could make all the difference in a state: KEAN: BUSH VISIT MEANS N.J. HAS A FRIEND IN WHITE HOUSE That would be the headline from Trenton, if the Governor, like Tom Kean, was a friend who’d billboard Bush’s day in the Garden State—his visit to that toxic-waste cleanup site, all the help he’d offered on that Superfund. ... Of course, if the Governor wasn’t a friend, then his appointed State Police Chief might find time to take a couple of press calls. ... That would be a different headline: BUSH VISIT WILL COST $200,000 IN OVERTIME”
― Richard Ben Cramer, quote from What It Takes: The Way to the White House
BookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.
We thoughtfully gather quotes from our favorite books, both classic and current, and choose the ones that are most thought-provoking. Each quote represents a book that is interesting, well written and has potential to enhance the reader’s life. We also accept submissions from our visitors and will select the quotes we feel are most appealing to the BookQuoters community.
Founded in 2023, BookQuoters has quickly become a large and vibrant community of people who share an affinity for books. Books are seen by some as a throwback to a previous world; conversely, gleaning the main ideas of a book via a quote or a quick summary is typical of the Information Age but is a habit disdained by some diehard readers. We feel that we have the best of both worlds at BookQuoters; we read books cover-to-cover but offer you some of the highlights. We hope you’ll join us.