Tiziano Terzani · 384 pages
Rating: (3.2K votes)
“Every place is a goldmine. You have only to give yourself time, sit in a teahouse watching the passers-by, stand in a corner of the market, go for a haircut. You pick up a thread – a word, a meeting, a friend of a friend of someone you have just met – and soon the most insipid, most insignificant place becomes a mirror of the world, a window on life, a theatre of humanity.”
― Tiziano Terzani, quote from A Fortune-Teller Told Me: Earthbound Travels in the Far East
“Per i prossimo dieci anni la tua vita sarà orribile, avrai grandi problemi e niente ti andrà bene", dice l'indovino. "E poi?", chiede ansioso il cliente. "Poi? Poi ci farai l'abitudine!”
― Tiziano Terzani, quote from A Fortune-Teller Told Me: Earthbound Travels in the Far East
“La mobilità sociale ha aperto a tutti la possibilità di aspirare a qualsiasi cosa, ma con ciò nessuno è più "predestinato" a nulla. È forse per questo che la gente è sempre più disorientata e incerta sul senso della propria vita.”
― Tiziano Terzani, quote from A Fortune-Teller Told Me: Earthbound Travels in the Far East
“Vladimir conosceva la vita e aveva una visione chiara di come andava il mondo. Tutto quel che era buono, ordinato, bello, pulito per lui era «normal». La libertà di darsi da fare? «Normal.» Amare le donne? «Normal.» Quello che non era più «normal» era la Russia perché non c’era più ordine, perché fra mafiosi, gangster e poliziotti non c’è più differenza e con la mano faceva il gesto: «tutti uguali», gli uni come altri, tutti mischiati. Indicava le mostrine di un ufficiale e diceva: «Mafia; no normal». «Democracy?» si domandava retoricamente e si rispondeva: «No normal. Popolo russo ha bisogno di dittatore. Grande dittatore per Russia è normal. Stalin per Russia è normal». Non credo lo dicesse solo perché Stalin era, come lui, un georgiano. Lo diceva perché con il fallimento del comunismo e la caduta dell’Impero sovietico, la gente come lui non sa in che cosa sperare, non vede attorno a sé nessuno di grande cui affidare la propria sorte.”
― Tiziano Terzani, quote from A Fortune-Teller Told Me: Earthbound Travels in the Far East
“I vincitori invece credono di non aver nulla da imparare.”
― Tiziano Terzani, quote from A Fortune-Teller Told Me: Earthbound Travels in the Far East
“Die Nacht, die Stimmung auf dem Schiff und wieder dieses völlige Losgelöstsein von der gewöhnlichen Welt hatten mir jenes rauschhafte Freiheitsgefühl erweckt, das meine Droge ist.”
― Tiziano Terzani, quote from A Fortune-Teller Told Me: Earthbound Travels in the Far East
“detto tibetano: «Se c’è venerazione, anche il dente d’un cane emette luce».”
― Tiziano Terzani, quote from A Fortune-Teller Told Me: Earthbound Travels in the Far East
“Dalla Cina di Mao all’India di Gandhi e alla Cambogia di Pol Pot, tutti gli esperimenti di autarchia, di sviluppo non capitalista, con caratteristiche nazionali, sono falliti. I più per giunta, facendo milioni di vittime.”
― Tiziano Terzani, quote from A Fortune-Teller Told Me: Earthbound Travels in the Far East
Tiziano Terzani
Born place: in Firenze, Italy
Born date September 14, 1938
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― L.J. Smith, quote from The Forbidden Game
“Amongst mortals no man is happy; wealth may pour in and make one luckier than another, but none can happy be.”
― Euripides, quote from Medea
“Was it the infinite sadness of her eyes that drew him or the mirror of himself that he found in the gorgeous clarity of her mind?”
― F. Scott Fitzgerald, quote from This Side of Paradise
“.... So Cu Chulainn asked and he asked, and at length he learned that the best teacher of the arts of war was a woman, Scathach, a strange creature who lived on a tiny island off the coast of Alba."
"A woman?" someone echoed scornfully. "How could that be?"
"Ah, well, this was no ordinary woman, as our hero soon found out for himself. When he came to the wild shore of Alba and looked across the raging waters to the island where she lived with her warrior women, he saw that there could be a difficulty before he even set foot there. For the only way across was by means of a high, narrow bridge, just wide enough for one man to walk on. And the instant he set his foot upon its span, the bridge began to shake and flex and bounce up and down, all along its considerable length, so that anyone foolish enough to venture farther along it would straightaway be tossed down onto the knife-sharp rocks or into the boiling surf."
"Why didn't he use a boat?" asked Spider with a perplexed frown.
"Didn't you hear what Liadan said?" Gull responded with derision. "Raging waters? Boiling surf? No boat could have crossed that sea, I'd wager.”
― Juliet Marillier, quote from Son of the Shadows
“I was not made for the desk and counting-house, for petty business squabbling, and legal jangling.”
― Jack London, quote from Martin Eden
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