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
“Wherever we go, there seems to be only one business at hand - that of finding workable compromises between the sublimity of our ideas and the absurdity of the fact of us.”
― Annie Dillard, quote from Teaching a Stone to Talk: Expeditions and Encounters
“Biology
The film turns out to be about bees. It is a film about a bee center. How crap is this going to be?
An hour later
That was the best thing I have seen for ages. We made Miss Wilson rewind the bit where the two queens were having a bitch fight.”
― Louise Rennison, quote from Love Is a Many Trousered Thing
“Tienes que elegir", dijo Aiden. "Puedes quedarte aquí, renunciar a la misión, y vivir una vida feliz con Caleb. Será una vida del corazón. Pero no del espíritu. Hemos sido traídos a este planeta para elegir entre dos vidas: una vida del corazón, o una vida del espíritu. Nuestro corazón nos puede atar a las cuestiones domésticas. Pero nuestro espíritu debe elevarse. Debe seguir su vocación.”
― Morgan Rice, quote from Desired
“@She is really really so beautiful there,' said Assad.
Carl glanced at him. Apparently a woman's appearance was a particularly valuable factor in his assistant's world-view. But Carl agreed with him.”
― Jussi Adler-Olsen, quote from The Keeper of Lost Causes
“No wonder tobacco shops have a predilection for corners, for”
― Vladimir Nabokov, quote from The Stories of Vladimir Nabokov
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