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How We Survived Communism and Even Laughed

Book by Slavenka Drakulić · 5 quotes · Communism, Poverty, Animal Rights

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How We Survived Communism and Even Laughed Quotes

“Perhaps to them and their peers their ecological consciousness is a bigger sign of prestige than a fur coat. Perhaps they feel on more equal terms with the world. I admit I saw the future in them. But they were aggressive and I didn't like it, in spite of their concern for animals. On the other hand, perhaps they are too young to understand that human beings are an endangered species and that they too have a right to protection - particularly in some parts of the world. I hope they learn this soon.”

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Book:How We Survived Communism and Even Laughed
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“That evening, in her apartment, still in Warsaw, Ana takes down a book from her shelf – a rather thick, ordinary paperback. It looks old, because it's worn out and somehow shabby. But it's not ordinary. I can tell by the way she handles it so carefully, like something unique. 'This is the book I told you about,' she says, holding out the Anthology of Feminist Texts, a collection of early American feminist essays, 'the only feminist book translated into the Polish language,' the only such book to turn to when you are sick and tired of reading about man-eater/man-killer feminists from the West, I think, looking at it, imagining how many women have read this one copy. 'Sometimes I feel like I live on Jupiter, among Jupiterians, and then one day, quite by chance, I discover that I belong to another species. And I discover it in this book. Isn't that wonderful.”

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“To say it's the poor quality of the paint under socialism is correct, but it is not enough. To say it's soft-coal exploitation and air pollution, bad gasoline and bad cars, or lack of money - that again would be correct. But not the whole story. All these reasons (and probably many more) are not enough to explain the decrepitude. I think the reason is in us. The cities have been killed by our decades of indifference, by our conviction that somebody else - the government, the party, those 'above' - is in charge of it. Not us. How can it be us, if we are not in charge of our own lives?”

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