312 pages
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“My spirit gets nourished in faraway places. Sometimes I wonder if it's a biological need, perhaps a biological flaw, that compels me to seek the excitement and challenge that comes of being in a place where nobody knows me.
Other times I think that my compulsion to settle into communities that are different from the ones I know is related to my passion for experiential learning. I learn best and most happily by doing, touching, sharing, tasting. When I'm somewhere I've never been before, learning goes on all day, every day.”
― quote from Tales of a Female Nomad: Living at Large in the World
“As an observer, I am particularly interested in watching women, married, divorced, single. So many of them trapped in lives they think they must live, in roles they have come to resent, with little job and no laughter. They've "settled." They've compromised. They've learned to adjust.
Among the divorced, many are bitter, coloring their lives with resentment; others live only to meet the man who will complete them.
I have no intentions of adjusting, and I am not looking to define myself by the man I am with. The new me is feeling rebellious, looking for excitement, bursting with energy to explore. There is no way that I am going to sit around feeling sorry for myself, thinking that the only way I can enjoy life is with a man.
With no possessions, no home, and no precedent, I am free to design a life that fits me. Best of all, I have tasted the life I want. My Mexican adventure opened me up. I want more. During my four months away, I met interesting people, I was never bored, and I laughed more than I had in years. I resolve to continue exploring the world, ignoring the THEY who define how people should live.”
― quote from Tales of a Female Nomad: Living at Large in the World
“I have buried my fears, abandoned self-consciousness, and allowed myself to slide into sensation. I like the person I have become.”
― quote from Tales of a Female Nomad: Living at Large in the World
“When we are finished the little boy walks over to me and looks up at my chest. Then he reaches up and cups my breast in his hand. The mother comes over and does the same thing with my other breast. Yes I am the same I nod. Look. I pull up my shirt and unhook my bra. My breasts pop out and they both smile.
I think about the Zapotec village in Mexico where I was not accepted until I was wearing their clothes and the Balinese ceremonies I would never have attended in anything but a kebaya and a sarong. I smile when I realize that if I were to live here I would walk around topless. If I weren't with three westerners I would do it right now.”
― quote from Tales of a Female Nomad: Living at Large in the World
“But I'm not running away. I'm running toward... toward adventure, toward discovery, toward diversity. And while I was in Mexico I discovered something intruiging: Once I leave the U.S., I am not bound by the rules of my culture. And when I am a foreigner in another country, I am exempt from the local rules. This extraordinary situation means that there are no rules in my life. I am free to live by the standards and ideals and rules I create for myself.”
― quote from Tales of a Female Nomad: Living at Large in the World
“I feel no guilt as I demolish some long-cherished no-fat rules along with the chicharrón. I’m not sure why I am guilt-free. Perhaps it is the setting; rules tend to reduce their grip when you cross borders. Perhaps it is the chicharrón, crunchy, light, and bacony; it’s easy to put aside guilt in the enthusiasm and taste of the moment. But more likely, the joy I feel at this guilt-free moment is a sign that I really have peeled away the old and begun the process of self-discovery.”
― quote from Tales of a Female Nomad: Living at Large in the World
“The typical backpacker is unmarried, educated, but not yet on the career track. Among the backpackers, there are always a lot of young Europeans who work for a year or two at home, save their money, then travel until it runs out. Canadians and Australians are also backpack travelers; so are Israelis, taking a year off after serving in the army, and New Zealanders on their great “OE,” overseas experience. There are Americans as well; but the Americans are usually on a tighter schedule, and I find them less friendly, at least to me.”
― quote from Tales of a Female Nomad: Living at Large in the World
“She is learning toward me, animatedly asking questions, and he is a half step back. It happens three more times that night and many times over the next years. Usually it's the women who identify with me and ask the questions. It isn't the details of my travels that intrigue them; it's the fact that I am living a rich, fulfilling life. And I'm doing it without a man. For many women, my story awakens buried dreams or stimulates new ones.”
― quote from Tales of a Female Nomad: Living at Large in the World
“I have never tried anything psychedelic, but I’ve always wanted to. Would I be wrapped up in colors, attacked by sounds, filled with insights about worlds I don’t even know exist?”
― quote from Tales of a Female Nomad: Living at Large in the World
“Perhaps it is the setting; rules tend to reduce their grip when you cross borders.”
― quote from Tales of a Female Nomad: Living at Large in the World
“What do you make of him?" I asked Elizabeth.
"Apart from the fact he's clearly insane?"
"What can he learn from Konrad's blood?" I said. "Except that he needs it in his body to live!"
"There is something ghoulish about it."
"He's like a vampyre,”
― Kenneth Oppel, quote from This Dark Endeavor
“This is bigger than you," said Mr. Baram. "You can bring down this whole system. Erase the data that enslaves so many. Jubilee. Freedom. Forgiveness. Is that not enough?”
― Alex London, quote from Proxy
“--Seek far from noise and day some western cave, Where woods and streams with soft and pausing winds A lulling murmur weave?— [_30 Ianthe] doth not sleep The dreamless sleep of death:-
Shelley, Percy Bysshe (2011-03-24). The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley — Complete (Kindle Locations 317-319). . Kindle Edition.”
― Percy Bysshe Shelley, quote from The Complete Poems
“Your people wouldn’t fight with each other so often if the ones deciding to fight were the first ones to bleed.”
― Rebecca Zanetti, quote from Fated
“Because the lenders sold many—though not all—of the loans they made to other investors, in the form of mortgage bonds, the industry was also fraught with moral hazard. “It was a fast-buck business,” says Jacobs. “Any business where you can sell a product and make money without having to worry how the product performs is going to attract sleazy people.”
― Michael Lewis, quote from The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine
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