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Quote by Noha Alaa El-Din

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It's Hard to Please Vandanya: The Suitcase

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Noha Alaa El-Din

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“Make sure you wear it on the left side. That means you're single and ready for new adventures. 'Left is for looking, right is for cooking.'" Lisbeth giggles, almost blushes, and lifts her hand to her head reflexively. She's seen women on the street with flowers behind their ears, along the road, in stores, on their way home from the fields carrying baskets of cassava, the yellowish white root that's used in every meal. She's seen the red hibiscus, the bulging ginger blossom, the bewitchingly aromatic frangipani behind the ears of men too, but she wasn't aware of this secret code for courting.”

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Book:Pieces of Happiness
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“My chocolate strawberry chiffon pie was a hit not to be missed: a chocolate crust filled with a pink strawberry custard studded with bits of fresh strawberry. I will make it again and this time I'll decorate it with sugared basil leaves and strawberry hearts. For my savory pie, I'm making a mixed mushroom filling with fresh herbs and taleggio, encased in a double crust that is studded with fresh rosemary and thyme. To decorate it, I've cut out of rolled an intricate forest scene and affixed it to the top crust with a wash of egg white.”

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Book:The Golden Spoon
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“....the Crocodiles say they can't even begin to say how many new guys they've seen Come In and then get sucked back Out There, Come In to AA for a while and Hang In and put together a little sober time and have things start to get better, head-wise and life-quality-wise, and after a while the new guys get cocky, they decide they've gotten `Well,' and they get really busy at the new job sobriety's allowed them to get, or maybe they buy season Celtics tickets, or they rediscover pussy and start chasing pussy (these withered gnarled toothless totally post-sexual old fuckers actually say pussy), but one way or another these poor cocky clueless new bastards start gradually drifting away from rabid Activity In The Group, and then away from their Group itself, and then little by little gradually drift away from any AA meetings at all, and then, without the protection of meetings or a Group, in time--oh there's always plenty of time, the Disease is fiendishly patient--how in time they forget what it was like, the ones that've cockily drifted, they forget who and what they are, they forget about the Disease, until like one day they're at like maybe a Celtics-Sixers game, and the good old Fleet/First Interstate Center's hot, and they think what could just one cold foamer hurt, after all this sober time, now that they've gotten `Well.' Just one cold one. What could it hurt. And after that one it's like they'd never stopped, if they've got the Disease. And how in a month or six months or a year they have to Come Back In, back to the Boston AA halls and their old Group, tottering, D.T.ing, with their faces hanging down around their knees all over again, or maybe it's five or ten years before they can get it up to get back In, beaten to shit again, or else their system isn't ready for the recurred abuse again after some sober time and they die Out There--the Crocodiles are always talking in hushed, 'Nam-like tones about Out There--or else, worse, maybe they kill somebody in a blackout and spend the rest of their lives in MCI-Walpole drinking raisin jack fermented in the seatless toilet and trying to recall what they did to get in there, Out There; or else, worst of all, these cocky new guys drift back Out There and have nothing sufficiently horrible to Finish them happen at all, just go back to drinking 24/7/365, to not-living, behind bars, undead, back in the Disease's cage all over again. The Crocodiles talk about how they can't count the number of guys that've Come In for a while and drifted away and gone back Out There and died, or not gotten to die.”

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Book:Infinite Jest
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“Imagine a land where people are afraid of dragons. It is a reasonable fear: dragons possess a number of qualities that make being afraid of them a very commendable response. Things like their terrible size, their ability to spout fire, or to crack boulders into splinters with their massive talons. In fact, the only terrifying quality that dragons do not possess is that of existence. Now, the people of this land know about dragons because their leaders have warned them about them. They tell stories about cruel dragons with razor teeth and fiery breath. They recount legends of dragons hunting by night on silent wings. In short, the leaders make sure that the people believe in all the qualities of dragons, including that key quality of existence. And then they control the people — when they need to — with their fear of dragons. The people pay a dragon-slaying tax … everyone stays indoors after dark to avoid being snatched by swooping claws … and nobody ever strays out of bounds for fear of being eaten well and truly up. Perhaps somebody will wonder if dragons aren’t, after all, fictitious because — despite their size — nobody seems to have actually seen one. And so it is necessary from time to time to provide evidence: a burnt tree or two, a splintered rock, the mysterious absence of a villager. The population is controlled by the dragons in its collective mind. It’s contrived superstition, and it is possible because the people do not know enough about the way the world works to know that dragons do not exist.”

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Book:Book of Pages
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“I thought crocodiles lived under my bed and if my feet hung over the side, they'd get bitten off. So I slept in a ball. I think I still do actually." Oh God. Shut up. Shut up. "Out of habit, I mean, not crocodiles. I d-don't think that anymore. Obviously." He was quiet a moment. And then, faintly accusingly, "You know that's adorable, don't you?" I tripped hard over adorable and couldn't think how to answer. So I said nothing at all, and merely enjoyed my few minutes in a dangerous puddle with a man who maybe thought I was adorable.”

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Book:Waiting for the Flood
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“There are many rivers to cross to our successful destinations. Never fear the crocodiles. They may look frightful, but they will not harm you. You will get there! With the right attitude, you ignore the ugly face of the shore and you can paddle your boat to the right destination!”

SuccessFearSuccessfulSucceedFood For ThoughtIsraelmore AyivorHarmDestinationFrightCrocodilesNever FearSucceedsRight AttitudeCross The RiverMany Rivers To CrossYou Will Get There
Book:Michelangelo | Beethoven | Shakespeare: 15 Things Common to Great Achievers
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