“
He sat down with a dour face. “Ah, Shqipëria!” he said dropping his head. “Albania will never become Albania with Albanians in it!” He glanced at Jude. “Don’t ask.
”
”
Paul Alkazraji (The Silencer)
“
Even if we have to go without bread, we Albanians do not violate principles. We do not betray Marxism - Leninism.
”
”
Enver Hoxha
“
Naten s'kisha gjume, me mbyste pendimi, kot thone qe pendimi te lehteson.
”
”
Fyodor Dostoevsky
“
There’s always a motive, Father. Ever since the war between the Balkan League of Serbia, Greece, and Bulgaria against Turkey, we’ve heard nothing but reports of infighting within the league for the spoils of Turkish territories. Look at Hungary and Austria, who invested heavily in Serbia and then insisted that an independent Albanian
”
”
Jana Petken (The Guardian of Secrets)
“
They were always Albanians. You know what that means. Some Catholics, some Orthodox. And some, in time, were Muslims, too. But the first religion of the Albanian, as they say, is Albania.
”
”
Jason Goodwin (The Snake Stone (Yashim the Eunuch, #2))
“
And did I not think then, What nonsense it is to suppose one man so different from another when all that life really boils down to is getting a decent cup of coffee and room to stretch out in?
”
”
Alice Munro
“
In science too, one dedicates his life to an Albanian snail, another to a virus. Darwin gave eight years to barnacles. And in wise later life, to earthworms. The Higgs boson, a tiny thing, perhaps not even a thing, was the lifetime's pursuit of thousands. To be bound in a nutshell, see the world in two inches of ivory, in a grain of sand. Why not, when all of literature, all of art, of human endeavor, is just a speck in the universe of possible things. And even this universe may be a speck in a multitude of actual and possible universes.
So why not be an owl poet?
”
”
Ian McEwan (Nutshell)
“
Po ç'pune ke ti, mor zoteri, me çizmet e mia te shqyera dhe me berrylat e mi te grisur?
”
”
Fyodor Dostoevsky
“
Incompatible religious doctrines have balkanized our world into separate moral communities, and these divisions have become a continuous source of bloodshed. Indeed, religion is as much a living spring of violence today as it has been at any time in the past. The recent conflicts in Palestine (Jews vs. Muslims), the Balkans (Orthodox Serbians vs. Catholic Croatians; Orthodox Serbians vs. Bosnian and Albanian Muslims), Northern Ireland (Protestants vs. Catholics), Kashmir (Muslims vs. Hindus), Sudan (Muslims vs. Christians and animists), Nigeria (Muslims vs. Christians), Ethiopia and Eritrea (Muslims vs. Christians), Sri Lanka (Sinhalese Buddhists vs. Tamil Hindus), Indonesia (Muslims vs. Timorese Christians), Iran and Iraq (Shiite vs. Sunni Muslims), and the Caucasus (Orthodox Russians vs. Chechen Muslims; Muslim Azerbaijanis vs. Catholic and Orthodox Armenians) are merely a few cases in point. These are places where religion has been the explicit cause of literally millions of deaths in recent decades.
Why is religion such a potent source of violence? There is no other sphere of discourse in which human beings so fully articulate their differences from one another, or cast these differences in terms of everlasting rewards and punishments. Religion is the one endeavor in which us–them thinking achieves a transcendent significance. If you really believe that calling God by the right name can spell the difference between eternal happiness and eternal suffering, then it becomes quite reasonable to treat heretics and unbelievers rather badly. The stakes of our religious differences are immeasurably higher than those born of mere tribalism, racism, or politics.
”
”
Sam Harris
“
E po, mirupafshim! Po me mbyt trishtimi, nga merzia. Seç kam nje brenge ne shpirt, Makar Aleksejeviç. As vete s'e di arsyen. E tille dite paska qene. Mirupafshim!
”
”
Fyodor Dostoevsky
“
An Albanian’s house is the dwelling of God and the guest.’ Of God and the guest, you see. So before it is the house of its master, it is the house of one’s guest. The guest, in an Albanian’s life, represents the supreme ethical category, more important than blood relations. One may pardon the man who spills the blood of one’s father or of one’s son, but never the blood of a guest.
”
”
Ismail Kadare (Broken April)
“
E ke vene re, Seriozha? Sikur qesh me ty duket, kurse ne te vertete nuk te qesh, te do...
”
”
Fyodor Dostoevsky
“
Lere pastaj qe ka dhe jo pak pasunare qe s'i pelqen te degjojne ankimet me ze te larte te varfanjakeve. Se, sigurisht, i shqetesojne, i bezdisin me ankesat pa fund. Po, moj shpirt, varferia kurdohere e bezdisshme eshte. Ja ç'eshte, Varenjka. Renkimet e te uriturve, klithmat e zemerplasurve u prishin gjumin ca zoterinjve.
”
”
Fyodor Dostoevsky
“
Me dendin me lakra, gatuar me çaj,
Fryhu bark, fryhu, pelcit,.s'te kam faj!
("kenge burgu")
”
”
Fyodor Dostoevsky
“
For as long as anyone can remember, the history of Kosovo has been a battlefield pitting Serbs against Albanians. Each believes different things because each has been taught different things, and as they reach further back into time it becomes easier to argue whatever they want in order to find support for their view of the present.
”
”
Tim Judah (Kosovo: What Everyone Needs to Know)
“
Nga shqiptarë të sunduar u gdhinë në mysliman të çliruar?
”
”
Ismail Kadare (Mëngjeset në Kafe Rostand)
“
Eshte e mire letersia, Varenjka, shume e mire eshte. U binda diten e trete te vizitave. Gje me peshe. Ua forcon zemren njerezve, u meson si te jetojne. C'nuk thuhet ne ato shkrime.
”
”
Fyodor Dostoevsky
“
The boat was vacuum-packed with Albanians, four generations to a family: great-grandmother, air-dried like a chilli pepper, deep red skin and a hot temper; grandmother, all sun-dried tomato, tough, chewy, skin split with the heat; getting the kids to rub olive oil into her arms; mother, moist as a purple fig, open everywhere - blouse, skirt, mouth, eyes, a wide-open woman, lips licking the salt spray flying from the open boat. Then there were the kids, aged four and six, a couple of squirs, zesty as lemons.
”
”
Jeanette Winterson
“
Indeed, religion is as much a living spring of violence today as it was at any time in the past. The recent conflicts in Palestine (Jews v Muslims), the Balkans (Orthodox Serbians v Catholic Croatians; Orthodox Serbians v Bosnian and Albanian Muslims), Northern Ireland (Protestants v Catholics), Kashmir (Muslims v Hindus), Sudan (Muslims v Christians and animists), Nigeria (Muslims v Christians) and Iran and Iraq (Shia v Sunni) are merely a few cases in point. These are places where religion has been the explicit cause of millions of deaths in the past decade.
”
”
Sam Harris (The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason)
“
Duhet te qendrojne larg njeri-tjetri si fatkeqet ashtu dhe te varferit, keshtu nuk do te rendoheshin nga njeri-tjetri. Ju shkaktova aq shume fatkeqesi, qe s'i kishit patur kurre me pare ne jeten modeste te vetmitarit. Kjo me brengos, ma derrmon shpirtin.
”
”
Fyodor Dostoevsky
“
What are you doing?” she finally asked. “Just thinking about my day. What are you doing?” “Trying to find Jace. Have you seen her?” “Trying to find her? Why? Is it because she’s Albanian?” “I’m trying to . . . wait . . . what?” “You hate her because she’s Albanian?” “I don’t hate—” “Is it just Albanians you hate, or is it all East Europeans?” “What are you talking about?” “Wow. I had no idea you were like this.” Another sister-Crow showed up. “Like what?” “Rachel hates Eastern Europeans.” “I do not!” “So you hate all Europeans? Is that what you’re saying?” “No!” “My God, Rachel.” The other sister-Crow shook her head, disgust on her face as she walked off. “I’m really disappointed in you.” “Wait . . .” Rachel glared down at Annalisa. “Jesus Christ.” “So you hate the Christian God, too?
”
”
Shelly Laurenston (The Undoing (Call of Crows, #2))
“
Poetry
Poetry,
How did you find your way to me?
My mother does not know Albanian well,
She writes letters like Aragon, without commas and periods,
My father roamed the seas in his youth,
But you have come,
Walking down the pavement of my quiet city of stone,
And knocked timidly at the door of my three-storey house,
At Number 16.
There are many things I have loved and hated in life,
For many a problem I have been an 'open city',
But anyway...
Like a young man returning home late at night,
Exhausted and broken by his nocturnal wanderings,
Here too am I, returning to you,
Worn out after another escapade.
And you,
Not holding my infidelity against me,
Stroke my hair tenderly,
My last stop,
Poetry.
”
”
Ismail Kadare
“
Po t'a kisha pase ne dore do ta grisesha carcafin dhe nuk do ta lejsha femnen pa shkolle, pse grueja asht themeli i shoqnis njerezore, pse ajo asht burimi i moralit, pse ajo eshte nyja e shenjte e qenejes, pse ajo e mbjell faren e dashunis vellazenore ne mes njerezve. E kur ajo lihet mbas dore vuen e tane shoqnia njerezore.
”
”
Haki Stërmilli (Sikur t'isha djalë)
“
ajzat ishin te bardha si endrra e mengjesit por fatkeqesisht , po aq te pakapshme si endrra.
”
”
Ismail Kadare (The Siege)
“
What are you doing?” she finally asked.
“Just thinking about my day. What are you doing?”
“Trying to find Jace. Have you seen her?”
“Trying to find her? Why? Is it because she’s Albanian?”
“I’m trying to . . . wait . . . what?”
“You hate her because she’s Albanian?”
“I don’t hate—”
“Is it just Albanians you hate, or is it all East Europeans?”
“What are you talking about?”
“Wow. I had no idea you were like this.”
Another sister-Crow showed up. “Like what?”
“Rachel hates Eastern Europeans.”
“I do not!”
“So you hate all Europeans? Is that what you’re saying?”
“No!”
“My God, Rachel.” The other sister-Crow shook her head, disgust on her face as she walked off. “I’m really disappointed in you.”
“Wait . . .” Rachel glared down at Annalisa. “Jesus Christ.”
“So you hate the Christian God, too?”
“Oh my God! Shut up!”
Rachel stormed off, calling after the sister-Crow who’d been so disgusted with her, and Annalisa opened the closet door. “Anglo guilt . . . it’s so my favorite thing.
”
”
Shelly Laurenston (The Undoing (Call of Crows, #2))
“
It is said that in those days one could hear seventy languages in the streets of Istanbul. The vast Ottoman Empire, shrunken and weakened though it now was, had made it normal and natural for Greeks to inhabit Egypt, Persians to settle in Arabia and Albanians to live with Slavs. Christians and Muslims of all sects, Alevis, Zoroastrians, Jews, worshippers of the Peacock Angel, subsisted side by side in the most improbable places and combinations. There were Muslim Greeks, Catholic Armenians, Arab Christians and Serbian Jews. Istanbul was the hub of this broken-felloed wheel, and there could be found epitomised the fantastical bedlam and babel, which although no one realised it at the time, was destined to be the model and precursor of all the world's great metropoles a hundred years hence, by which time Istanbul itself would, paradoxically, have lost its cosmopolitan brilliance entirely. It would be destined, perhaps, one day to find it again, if only the devilish false idols of nationalism, that specious patriotism of the morally stunted, might finally be toppled in the century to come.
”
”
Louis de Bernières (Birds Without Wings (Vintage International))
“
Se une jo vetem nuk isha nopran e nurzi, por as i lig e as keqdashes nuk isha, ama edhe ndonje hiç nuk ehste se isha. Ja ku po jua them se nuk kam qene as i lig e as i poshter, po as i ndershem, nuk kam qene hero, por edhe shterpi nuk kam qene. Ne keto çaste dergjem ne qoshen time dhe vetem ndersej veten, vetem shtirem sikur kam qene njeri i keq, se, sipas meje, nje njeri qe e ka plot koken, s'ka si ben marrezi si ato te miat, vetem budalli sillet asisoj.
”
”
Fyodor Dostoevsky
“
I had always pictured the Albanian
peasants as a very fine picturesque race of men wearing spotless native costume, and slung about with fascinating looking daggers and curious weapons of all kinds, but the great majority of those I saw, more especially in the small towns, were
a very degenerate looking race indeed.
”
”
Flora Sandes (An English Woman-Sergeant in the Serbian Army)
“
People with no experience of life except under communist regimes would tell me that they knew—though they were unsure how—that their life was not ‘natural,’ just as Winston Smith concludes that life in Airstrip One (the new name for England in 1984) was unnatural. Other ways of life might have their problems, my Albanian and Rumanian friends would say, but theirs was unique in its violation of human nature. Orwell’s imaginative grasp of what it was like to live under communism seemed to them, as it does to me, to amount to genius.
”
”
Theodore Dalrymple (Our Culture, What's Left Of It)
“
the complex of seven luxurious homes, swimming pools and lavish stables was surrounded by a twelve-foot wall patrolled by what we believed to be Albanians armed with Skorpion machine pistols. This was strange, given that the family was in the wholesale floristry business. Maybe flower theft was a bigger problem in northern Greece than most people realized.
”
”
Terry Hayes (I Am Pilgrim)
“
At least as coherent as the Gettysburg Address backwards in Albanian, anyway.
”
”
Norman Spinrad (Bug Jack Barron)
“
Albania’s future is towards Christianity, since it is connected with it culturally, old memories, and its pre-Turkish nostalgia. With the passing of time, the late Islamic religion that came with the Ottomans should evaporate (at first in Albania and then in Kosova), until it will be replaced by Christianity or, to be more exact, Christian culture. Thus from one evil (the prohibition of religion in 1967) goodness will come. The Albanian nation will make a great historical correction that will accelerate its unity with its mother continent: Europe
”
”
Ismail Kadare (Mëngjeset në Kafe Rostand)
“
What will be lost, and what saved, of our civilization probably lies beyond our powers to decide. No human group has ever figured out how to design its future. That future may be germinating today not in a boardroom in London or an office in Washington or a bank in Tokyo, but in some antic outpost or other -- a kindly British orphanage in the grim foothills of Peru, a house for the dying in a back street of Calcutta run by a fiercely single-minded Albanian nun, an easy-going French medical team at the starving edge of the Sahel, a mission to Somalia by Irish social workers who remember their own Great Hunger, a nursery program to assist convict-mothers at a New York Prison -- in some unheralded corner where a great-hearted human being is committed to loving o9utcasts in an extraordinary way.
”
”
Thomas Cahill (How the Irish Saved Civilization: The Untold Story of Ireland's Heroic Role from the Fall of Rome to the Rise of Medieval Europe)
“
Incompatible religious doctrines have Balkanised our world and these divisions have become a continuous source of bloodshed. Indeed, religion is as much a living spring of violence today as it was at any time in the past. The recent conflicts in Palestine (Jews v Muslims), the Balkans (Orthodox Serbians v Catholic Croatians; Orthodox Serbians v Bosnian and Albanian Muslims), Northern Ireland (Protestants v Catholics), Kashmir (Muslims v Hindus), Sudan (Muslims v Christians and animists), Nigeria (Muslims v Christians) and Iran and Iraq (Shia v Sunni) are merely a few cases in point. These are places where religion has been the explicit cause of millions of deaths in the past decade.
”
”
Sam Harris
“
Kushdo qofte, edhe njeriu i vogel, nga ata qe nuk e turbullojne ujin, qe askujt s'i bien me qafe, qe rrojne me friken e perendise, por edhe me friken per veten, shkojne me mendjen te mos ngacmojne njeri se keshtu as ate vete nuk do ta ngacmojne, do ta lene te qete ne hallet e tij, nuk deshiron qe te tjeret te futin hundet ne jeten e perditshme qe ben, nuk ia ka enda te flasin ne e ka te ri apo te vjeter jelekun, ne i ka te reja apo me mballoma çizmet, nuk ia ka enda te marrin vesh te tjeret ç'eshte duke ngrene, çfare po shkruan?... E ç'te keqe paska, moj zemer, qe une, kur shoh xhadene te prishur, eci ne maje te gishtave, shkel me kujdes per te ruajtur çizmet? Pse duhet shkruar per tjetrin qe ndonjehere nuk ka para as per te pire nje gote çaj? Sikur qenka e thene dhe e vulosur qe njerezit, te gjithe sa jane, patjeter duhet te pine çaj. Po pse e udhes qenka te shohesh ne gojen e tjetrit per te ditur ç'cope eshte duke pertypur? A fyhet njeriu keshtu? Jo, shpirti im! Perse u dashka fyer tjetri kur ai s'te ngacmon?
”
”
Fyodor Dostoevsky
“
Albanian dogs go “ham ham.” In Catalan, dogs go “bup bup.” The Chinese dogs say “wang wang,” the Greek dogs go “gav gav,” the Slovenians “hov hov,” and the Ukrainians “haf haf.” In Iceland, it’s “voff,” in Indonesia, it’s “gong gong,” and in Italian, it’s “bau bau.
”
”
John Lloyd (The Book of General Ignorance)
“
Men lie injured and dying between the old headstones: Macedonians, Albanians, Wallachians, Serbians, some in so much agony that they seem reduced to something less than human, as though pain were a leveling wave, a mortar troweled over everything that person once was.
”
”
Anthony Doerr (Cloud Cuckoo Land)
“
Jam njeri i semure... Jam edhe tip keqdashesi. Nuk bej pjese, nderkohe, ne simpatiket. Me duket se vuaj nga melçia, ndonese vete une gje prej gjeje nuk kuptoj nga semundjet, as qe e di me saktesi ç'me dhemb. Nuk kurohem e as jam kuruar ndonjehere, pavaresisht nga respekti qe kam per mjekesine (se i shkolluar une jam, por edhe bestyd jam). Me ka hipur ne kole, nuk dua te kurohem nga inati. Ju kete kushedi as edhe e kuptoni, kurse une e kuptoj, ndonese s'jam ne gjendje t'ua shpjegoj se kujt i bej dem me kete inat timin. E di fort mire, qe as mjekeve e askujt tjeter nuk i behet vone qe jam tip inatçori, e as vete per veten nuk e çaj koken, ndonese fort mire e di qe inati eshte dem i kokes. Ngado qe ta sjellesh e kam mbushur mendjen, e kam bere top: nuk dua qe nuk dua te kurohem. Me dhemb kjo e shkrete melçi, le te dhembe, nuk paska plasur!
”
”
Fyodor Dostoevsky (Notes from Underground, White Nights, The Dream of a Ridiculous Man, and Selections from The House of the Dead)
“
She remembered wondering what it was that the Albanians exported in such an anonymous way, but when on one occasion she had looked it up, she found that their only export was electricity—which, if she remembered her high school physics correctly, was unlikely to be moved around in lorries.
”
”
Douglas Adams (The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul (Dirk Gently, #2))
“
I probably should say that this is what makes you a good traveler in my opinion, but deep down I really think this is just universal, incontrovertible truth. There is the right way to travel, and the wrong way. And if there is one philanthropic deed that can come from this book, maybe it will be that I teach a few more people how to do it right. So, in short, my list of what makes a good traveler, which I recommend you use when interviewing your next potential trip partner: 1. You are open. You say yes to whatever comes your way, whether it’s shots of a putrid-smelling yak-butter tea or an offer for an Albanian toe-licking. (How else are you going to get the volcano dust off?) You say yes because it is the only way to really experience another place, and let it change you. Which, in my opinion, is the mark of a great trip. 2. You venture to the places where the tourists aren’t, in addition to hitting the “must-sees.” If you are exclusively visiting places where busloads of Chinese are following a woman with a flag and a bullhorn, you’re not doing it. 3. You are easygoing about sleeping/eating/comfort issues. You don’t change rooms three times, you’ll take an overnight bus if you must, you can go without meat in India and without vegan soy gluten-free tempeh butter in Bolivia, and you can shut the hell up about it. 4. You are aware of your travel companions, and of not being contrary to their desires/needs/schedules more often than necessary. If you find that you want to do things differently than your companions, you happily tell them to go on without you in a way that does not sound like you’re saying, “This is a test.” 5. You can figure it out. How to read a map, how to order when you can’t read the menu, how to find a bathroom, or a train, or a castle. 6. You know what the trip is going to cost, and can afford it. If you can’t afford the trip, you don’t go. Conversely, if your travel companions can’t afford what you can afford, you are willing to slum it in the name of camaraderie. P.S.: Attractive single people almost exclusively stay at dumps. If you’re looking for them, don’t go posh. 7. You are aware of cultural differences, and go out of your way to blend. You don’t wear booty shorts to the Western Wall on Shabbat. You do hike your bathing suit up your booty on the beach in Brazil. Basically, just be aware to show the culturally correct amount of booty. 8. You behave yourself when dealing with local hotel clerks/train operators/tour guides etc. Whether it’s for selfish gain, helping the reputation of Americans traveling abroad, or simply the spreading of good vibes, you will make nice even when faced with cultural frustrations and repeated smug “not possible”s. This was an especially important trait for an American traveling during the George W. years, when the world collectively thought we were all either mentally disabled or bent on world destruction. (One anecdote from that dark time: in Greece, I came back to my table at a café to find that Emma had let a nearby [handsome] Greek stranger pick my camera up off our table. He had then stuck it down the front of his pants for a photo. After he snapped it, he handed the camera back to me and said, “Show that to George Bush.” Which was obviously extra funny because of the word bush.) 9. This last rule is the most important to me: you are able to go with the flow in a spontaneous, non-uptight way if you stumble into something amazing that will bump some plan off the day’s schedule. So you missed the freakin’ waterfall—you got invited to a Bahamian family’s post-Christening barbecue where you danced with three generations of locals in a backyard under flower-strewn balconies. You won. Shut the hell up about the waterfall. Sally
”
”
Kristin Newman (What I Was Doing While You Were Breeding)
“
To these women, the veil constitutes an extremely important part of the idea of 'getting dressed', whereas in the West the veil represents a symbol of male dominance..
”
”
Antonia Young (Women Who Become Men: Albanian Sworn Virgins (Dress, Body, Culture))
“
To Balkanize has come to be used in a derogatory sense meaning to violently fragment, disrupt or disorganize..
”
”
Antonia Young (Women Who Become Men: Albanian Sworn Virgins (Dress, Body, Culture))
“
Tha, e thotë, edhe do t'thonë,
Dér sa t'jetë toka e qielli;
Si do kjoftë heret a vonë,
Mbas të vranit prap del dielli!... -
”
”
Hamid Gjylbegaj
“
Pak jetohet në këtë botë sa për të pasur kohë për të përhapur urrejtjen ndaj njëri-tjetrit.
”
”
Nebil Duraku (Egjra)
“
Once they had recovered, taking advantage of favourable winds, they crossed the Ionian Sea and docked at the Albanian port of Durrës, where the six families embarked, fleeing from tears towards some place where no one would be offended by their whisperings on the Sabbath. Since they were warmly welcomed by the Jewish community in Durrës, they established themselves there.
”
”
Jaume Cabré (Confessions)
“
Why the Albanians had created the institution of the guest, exalting it above all other human relations, even those of kinship. “Perhaps the answer lies in the democratic character of this institution,” he said, setting himself to think his way through the matter. “Any ordinary man, on any day, can be raised to the lofty station of a guest. The path to that temporary deification is open to anybody at any time.[...] Given that anyone at all can grasp the sceptre of the guest,” he went on, “and since that sceptre, for every Albanian, surpasses even the king’s sceptre, may we not assume that in the Albanian’s life of danger and want, that to be a guest if only for four hours or twenty-four hours, is a kind of respite, a moment of oblivion, a truce, a reprieve, and—why not?—an escape from everyday life into some divine reality?
”
”
Ismail Kadare (Broken April)
“
Some Committee?” she asked, as he opened the door. “Armenians,” he said; or perhaps it was “Albanians.” And there is a dignity in people; a solitude; even between husband and wife a gulf; and that one must respect, thought Clarissa, watching him open the door; for one would not part with it oneself, or take it, against his will, from one’s husband, without losing one’s independence, one’s self-respect — something, after all, priceless.
”
”
Virginia Woolf (Complete Works of Virginia Woolf)
“
For some, leaving was a necessity that went under the official name of ‘transition’. We were a society in transition, it was said, moving from socialism to liberalism, from one-party rule to pluralism, from one place to the other. Opportunities would never come to you, unless you went looking for them, like the half-cockerel in the old Albanian folk tale who travels far away, looking for his kismet, and in the end returns full of gold. For others, leaving the country was an adventure, a childhood dream come true or a way to please their parents. There were those who left and never returned. Those who went and came back soon after. Those who turned the organization of movement into a profession, who opened travel agencies or smuggled people on boats. Those who survived, and became rich. Those who survived, and continued to struggle. And those who died trying to cross the border. In
”
”
Lea Ypi (Free: Coming of Age at the End of History)
“
Generally the Truman Doctrine had been pursued passively, though in 1949 a secret joint American-British operation had parachuted trained Albanian exiles back into Albania to start a counterrevolution. This had failed, and nothing much had been tried since, aside from propaganda, notably the broadcasts of Radio Free Europe. American agents did not start the anti-Communist uprisings in East Germany or Czechoslovakia in 1953 or those in Poland or Hungary in 1956.
”
”
Alex von Tunzelmann (Blood and Sand: Suez, Hungary, and Eisenhower's Campaign for Peace)
“
Being with Nico feels so natural that it’s almost strange. How can one man burst into my life the way he did and yet make me feel so at ease by his side? In his arms is a safe haven—not to hide, but to flourish. With him, I’m the most me I’ve ever been.
”
”
Jessica Ruben (Light My Fire (Mafia Kingdom, #1))
“
Certain artists in print or paint flourish, like babies-to-be, in confined spaces. Their narrow subjects may confound or disappoint some. Courtship among the eighteenth-century gentry, life beneath the sail, talking rabbits, sculpted hares, fat people in oils, dog portraits, horse portraits, portraits of aristocrats, reclining nudes, Nativities by the million, and Crucifixions, Assumptions, bowls of fruit, flowers in vases. And Dutch bread and cheese with or without a knife on the side. Some give themselves in prose merely to the self. In science too, one dedicates his life to an Albanian snail, another to a virus. Darwin gave eight years to barnacles. And in wise later life, to earthworms. The Higgs boson, a tiny thing, perhaps not even a thing, was the lifetime's pursuit of thousands. To be bound in a nutshell, see the world in two inches of ivory, in a grain of sand. Why not, when all of literature, all of art, of human endeavour, is just a speck in the universe, of possible things. And even this universe may be a speck in a multitude of actual and possible universes.
So why not be an owl poet?
”
”
Ian McEwan (Nutshell)
“
Nicholas of Montenegro was not so easily swayed, however. He had bribed one of the defenders, an Albanian officer in the Ottoman army, to deliver the city to him. Essad Pasha Toptani, almost as much of a rogue as Nicholas himself, had first murdered the garrison’s commander and then set his price at £80,000 by sending out a message that he had lost a suitcase containing that amount and asking that it be returned.91 On April 23, Essad duly surrendered Scutari to the Montenegrins. In Montenegro’s capital, Cetinje, there were wild celebrations with drunken revelers firing their guns in all directions.
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”
Margaret MacMillan (The War That Ended Peace: The Road to 1914)
“
Turk, Elhamdulila
The Turks took up the sword,
Europe trembled, shuddered.
And we too in Kosova fought
For our beloved freedom.
They attacked with fire and sword,
For centuries our freedoms were lost,
The tyrant overran us:
'You are a Turk, elhamdulila!'
Religion and nation were the same,
Moslem and Turk were one.
He wanted us to forget our very names:
'You are a Turk, elhamdulila!'
He forbade our language too,
To speak no Turkish was to be an infidel.
It is the word of God, they told us:
'You are a Turk, elhamdulila!'
'You are a Turk, you are a Turk,' they thundered
At the Albanians for centuries,
And one day one of us uttered:
'I am a Turk, elhamdulila!'
But no, Turks we are not!
Never! Let everyone know
We have always been Albanians;
Religion cannot wipe that away!
No, Turks we are not!
But their working people we love.
After times of blood and gloom
We shall go forth - hand in hand!
Translated by Robert Elsie
”
”
Esad Mekuli
“
Khrushchev told Norman Cousins, a few months after the crisis, his reaction at the time: When I asked the military advisors if they could assure me137 that holding fast would not result in the death of five hundred million human beings, they looked at me as though I was out of my mind, or what was worse, a traitor. The biggest tragedy, as they saw it, was not that our country might be devastated and everything lost, but that the Chinese or the Albanians might accuse us of appeasement or weakness. So I said to myself, “To hell with these maniacs. If I can get the United States to assure me that it will not attempt to overthrow the Cuban government, I will remove the missiles.” That is what happened, and now I am reviled by the Chinese and the Albanians.… They say I was afraid to stand up to a paper tiger. It is all such nonsense. What good would it have done me in the last hour of my life to know that though our great nation and the United States were in complete ruins, the national honor of the Soviet Union was intact?
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”
Daniel Ellsberg (The Doomsday Machine: Confessions of a Nuclear War Planner)
“
I accepted the different explanations of what had caused this or that, how the international community had warned about such-and-such decision, how the Balkans had long had an explosive history—how one must factor in the ethnic and religious divisions that pervaded that corner of the world, and the legacy of socialism too. I accepted the story I heard on foreign media: that the Albanian Civil War could be explained not by the collapse of a flawed financial system but by the long-standing animosities between different ethnic groups, the Ghegs in the north and the Tosks in the south. I accepted it despite its absurdity, despite the fact that I didn’t know what I counted as, whether both or neither. I accepted it although my mother was a Gheg and my father a Tosk, and throughout their married life only their political and class divisions had ever mattered, never the accents with which they spoke. I accepted it, as we all did, as we accepted the liberal road map we had followed like a religious calling, as we accepted that its plan could be disrupted only by outside factors—like the backwardness of our own community norms—and never be beset by its own contradictions.
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”
Lea Ypi (Free: Coming of Age at the End of History)
“
Po njerëzit janë të ndryshëm. Ka të tillë, fytyra e të cilëve të rri përherë përpara. E njëjta. E pandryshuar. Ti e sheh dhe s'kupton asgjë. Mendon: "si është bërë kjo fytyrë e tillë indifirente e pakuptim. Dhe këtë unë duhet ta shoh çdo ditë, çdo orë, çdo çast të jetës sime; këtë fytyrë pa jetë... (shih jeta ç'fytyrë pa jetë na paska?!); ka të tjerë që kacavirren nëpër trupin tënd si ata kërmijtë dhe aty nëpër gjethe të ndërgjegjes sate lënë jargët e tyre; ka edhe nga ata, që ti ndofta nuk i ke parë asnjëherë , s'ke biseduar kurrë, se ndofta ata kanë rënë përmbys atje te xhamia e tabakëve, kanë rënë vite të shkuara, po ti e sheh, endjen edhe tani që ata janë përmbysur duke lënë një boshllëk të madh te ti, kanë hapur një zbrazësirë, që edge tani të prek me gishtërinjtë e gjatë e të ftohtë të kujtimit të vet. Dhe ti je i gëzuar, je i lumtur që dikur ata kanë jetuar.
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”
Fatos Arapi (Dikush më buzëqeshte)
“
And it was big enough that organized crime was split two separate ways. The west of the city was run by Ukrainians. The east was run by Albanians. The demarcation line between them was gerrymandered as tight as a congressional district. Nominally it followed Center Street, which ran north to south and divided the city in half, but it zigged and zagged and ducked in and out to include or exclude specific blocks and parts of specific neighborhoods, wherever it was felt historic precedents justified special circumstances. Negotiations had been tense. There had been minor turf wars. There had been some unpleasantness. But eventually an agreement had been reached. The arrangement seemed to work. Each side kept out of the other’s way. For a long time there had been no significant contact between them
”
”
Lee Child (Blue Moon (Jack Reacher, #24))
“
Serbs and Albanians, Swedes and Russians, Turks and Bulgarians who might have been at war with one another back in their mother countries were fused together, on the basis not of a shared ethnic culture or language or faith or national origin but solely on the basis of what they looked like in order to strengthen the dominant caste in the hierarchy. “No one was white before he/she came to America,” James Baldwin once said.
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”
Isabel Wilkerson (Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents)
“
I wondered whether by evoking endearing images of a common past I wouldn’t obscure the bloody images of the recent war, whether by reminding them of how Kiki sweets tasted I wouldn’t obliterate the case of the Belgrade boy stabbed to death by his coevals just because he was an Albanian, whether by urging them to “reflect on” Mirko and Slavko, the Yugopartisans of the popular comic strip, I wouldn’t be postponing their confrontation with the countless episodes of sadism perpetrated by Yugowarriors, drunk and crazed with momentary power, against their compatriots; or whether by calling up the popular refrain That’s what happens, my fair maiden, once you’ve known a Bosnian’s kiss I wouldn’t be dulling the impact of the countless deaths in Bosnia, that of Selim’s father, for instance. The lists of atrocities knew no end, and here I was, pushing them into the background with cheery catalogs of everyday trifles that no longer even existed.
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”
Dubravka Ugrešić (The Ministry of Pain: A Novel)
“
Corfu lies off the Albanian and Greek coast-lines like a long rust-eroded scimitar.
”
”
Gerald Durrell (Birds, Beasts and Relatives (Corfu Trilogy, #2))
“
Semi-enclosed within a rampart of books, she was reading intensely, oblivious of everything except the volumes she had gathered around her. Freddy tilted his head and read the titles on the bindings, whispering them as he read. He had assumed that her selection would be heavy on fashion, makeup, and “celebrities,” but he was wrong. With her left hand resting possessively on Who’s Who in Zimbabwe, she was deep in Sources and Methods of Hiccup Diagnosis. She had also chosen the Directory of Polish Hydraulic Fluid Wholesalers; the Encyclopaedia of Angels; the Catalogue of Chuvash Books in German Libraries; Aboriginal Science Fiction; The Register of Non-Existent Churches; A Bibliography of Indonesian Military Poetry; Orators Who Possessed Horses; Lloyds’ Survey of Failed Board Games; A Dictionary of the Efik Language; The Picture Book of Albanian Idioms—a list in her handwriting lay next to the latter, beginning with the entry, “I ka duart të prera, ‘to have one’s hands cut off,’ ”—The Language of the French & Indian War, Vol. I, Obscene Expressions; Glossary of Dead Architects (Freddy couldn’t wait to read the latest entries); and, finally, though not least, Nicknames of Popular Fish.
“You see,” he told her, “it’s fascinating.”
“Yes, I love it. Now go away.”
“I have our press.”
“I couldn’t care less about our press.”
She held up Who’s Who in Zimbabwe.
“There’s a whole world out there, Freddy, that has nothing to do with us.
”
”
Mark Helprin (Freddy and Fredericka)
“
During the four modern centuries, it is likely that over thirty million people were enslaved: twelve million across the Atlantic, approximately ten million from east Africa across the Indian Ocean, and ten million Turks, Russians, Georgians and Circassians from the Eurasian steppes. That does not include the Barbary–Moroccan trade in western Europeans nor the several million Serbs and Albanians enslaved by the Ottomans: some of these enslaved children became viziers and valide sultans, but that does not diminish their tragedy. Many Islamic slaves were females who served in households – but domestic service almost always included sexual abuse. It is estimated that the Crimean khans alone enslaved four million. Since there is no paperwork whatsoever for any of these trades, it is likely they are grossly underestimated.
”
”
Simon Sebag Montefiore (The World: A Family History of Humanity)
“
Ha! ha! the Saturnalia!” with reference to the attack made at that festival by the Albanians.
”
”
Cassius Dio (Complete Works of Cassius Dio)
“
In 2016, Albanian police purchased electric cars. However, at the time, there were no recharging spots at Albanian fuel stations or around Albanian cities, so the cars had to head back to the police stations to be recharged every day or twice a day. The estimated range of the purchased Volkswagen e-Golf varied between 130 and 190 kilometres (80-118 miles).
”
”
Nayden Kostov (323 Disturbing Facts about Our World)
“
Of all the Balkan subject peoples, the Albanians were most inclined to convert to Islam. The majority of converts, however, were men, whilst women often retained their Christian beliefs even when married to Muslims, and were a factor in maintaining goodwill between the members of the two faiths.9 At various times whole villages voluntarily renounced the religion of their forefathers for political advantage. The ability to gain a timar or avoid donating a precious healthy son to the devshirme were but two of many reasons for abandoning Christianity. The majority of conversions took place in the lowlands, around the Shkumbi river, where direct Ottoman pressure could most easily be exerted. Amongst the Albanians of Kosova there appears to have been a far greater readiness to accept Islam, perhaps because of the pressure of their close proximity to the Serbs, who by the 1830s had achieved their own autonomous state. Albanians who wished to retain their Christian faith after the Ottoman conquest often found it difficult to compete with those who had converted. To make their already difficult lives easier, therefore, many Albanians gradually adopted at least the outer signs of the Islamic faith, thus obtaining such privileges as the right to bear arms.
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”
Miranda Vickers (The Albanians: A Modern History)
“
Albanians don’t get dyslexia. It’s a disease Americans invented so they won’t have to admit their kids are retarded.
”
”
Francine Prose (My New American Life)
“
Alike preschool age Polish children, preschool age Albanian children are presumed to acquire mostly complex words formed according to productive word-formation rules and patterns (i. e., derived words) of their L1 during their preschool age. When enter school, their lexicon is presumed to be enriched mostly by complex words formed according to less productive word-formation rules and patterns (i. e., compound words) of their L1. Even, they are presumed to have acquired most of their L1 derivatives by the fifth grade.
”
”
Endri Shqerra (Acquisition of Word Formation Devices in First & Second Languages: Morphological Cross-linguistic Influence)
“
Do Albanian pupils outperform their English counterparts as regards the knowledge of their L1 derivational morphology? Early school age Albanian, French and English children demonstrate equal Knowledge of Lexical Semantic Relationship.
”
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Endri Shqerra (Acquisition of Word Formation Devices in First & Second Languages: Morphological Cross-linguistic Influence)
“
Albanian and French pupils’ high awareness of their L1 derivatives grants them a high ‘memory of language’. Consequently, compared to their English counterparts, they are more aware of the ‘Constraints’ their L1 imposes over derivational rules
”
”
Endri Shqerra (Acquisition of Word Formation Devices in First & Second Languages: Morphological Cross-linguistic Influence)
“
I don't know about you all, but I choose truth over lies and freedom over a political party; this is why I watch CNN, MSNBC, FOX, NEWSMAX, and different podcasts. I do this because I was born and raised in a communist country! Through bullets, I escaped from dictators, Iron Fist! I can say Communist, Fascist, and Nazi governments seized people's wealth, and the entire country ended up being equally poor. I remember when socialists seized my people's & Albanians wealth, and Albania ended up being one of the poorest countries in Europe. It took over 30 years and 1000's of lost lives for them to get back on their feet. People had enough of the dictator's, so people overthrew communism and capitalism took over, which turned Albania into the richest people from west vacation there! I can tell If you get EBT & SNAP today, it's because, whether we like it or not, we all pitched in to help. I feel bad for people who cheer up. What Democrats are doing to Trump is what communist did to rich people, and after that, they stole everybody's wealth from business to house, lands, farm animals, So if you think this is OKAY, think again, I was democrat for 25 years, but I'm afraid we will be next! This is why I refuse to choose a political party over my freedom. I hate to see my children and grandchildren who don't know America for their homeland, but if I have to, I'll go back to Albania, Where will you all go? Think about it; wake up before it's too late! Please read before you take your freedom away! I'm sorry, I will vote for Trump just because they offer him money not to run again for president! They also offered money to Thomas Clarence! This should worry all of us. read this before you cast your vote! "Enver Hoxha: The Iron Fist of Albania tells the extraordinary story of how one man held an entire country hostage for 40 years – and got away with it.
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Zybejta (Beta) Metani' Marashi
“
Raised bread cannot be prepared from millet, oats, barley, or corn. Therefore the history of bread revolves upon wheat and rye—and wheat far more than rye. Bread, in the technical sense of the word, is a discovery of man—one of his first great chemical triumphs. The Albanian proverb, “Bread is older than man,” springs from a poetic but misguided sense of history.
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Heinrich Eduard Jacob (Six Thousand Years of Bread: Its Holy and Unholy History)
“
After Italian, Sicilian is the most widely spoken Italic language in Italy, followed closely by Neapolitan. Sicily has several Albanian communities founded in the fifteenth century, where Arberesh, the medieval Tosk dialect of Albanian, is spoken; this was the mother tongue of Francesco Crispi, Italy’s first Sicilian prime minister.
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Louis Mendola (Sicilian Genealogy and Heraldry)
“
Language had a role to play in all this, the written language of course, but especially the spoken form. Some of the most problematic words created unimaginable difficulties, such as ‘gentleman’, ‘lady’ or ‘miss’, to cite only three. These words were rightly considered significant obstacles in the transition to communism. Each communist country had had its own experience of its language, often strange, as in the case of Albania. This little country, generally famous for its failings and backwardness, took an unexpected approach to these three words. Whereas the word ‘gentleman’ disappeared from currency in the very first phase of socialism, like in the Soviet Union, the word ‘lady’ had a certain staying power. But the nicest surprise turned out to be the word ‘miss’. There was a determined effort to replace it, because in Albanian it carried the affectionate connotations of the word ‘mother’, especially in primary schools. Despite the annoyance it caused, it was used by tens of thousands of little children instead of the word ‘teacher’. Efforts to supplant it failed one after another. The children stubbornly continued to call their teachers ‘miss’. It was this army of countless toddlers that proved indomitable, and the word ‘miss’ with its striking
”
”
Ismail Kadare (A Dictator Calls)
“
When Guido and I fled Sicily twenty five years ago, we had no paperwork to be in the US, so there was no means for me to get a legal job, especially as a minor. Pickpocketing on the streets, I’d barely been able to feed my brother. My only choice was to reach out to the local Albanian clan.
”
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Neva Altaj (Beautiful Beast (Perfectly Imperfect: Mafia Legacy, #1))
“
Some Albanians who have worn a veil say it creates a kind of freedom by giving them anonymity and symbolic invulnerability when outside the home.
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Antonia Young (Women Who Become Men: Albanian Sworn Virgins (Dress, Body, Culture))
“
parked, dominated the rest of the street. There was an understated sign over the door that read ALBANIAN CENTER in English, below which were some words in another language, which Lydia brilliantly deduced to be Albanian. Next to the door was a bulletin board behind a glass case containing a picture of Valentina, the date and the time of the service, and a few paragraphs in Albanian. It seemed like a meager memorial for a life to Lydia, who thought, You live a hurricane of emotions, dreams, experiences, hardships; you raise children. Your life seems so important, your problems so consuming, your successes so thrilling. And in the end, your picture winds up on a bulletin board, your life reduced to a snapshot and some kind words on a piece of paper.
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”
Lisa Miscione (The Darkness Gathers)
“
decade was over For Dummies books had been published in over 30 languages, from Albanian to Turkish. In the early years, many publishers questioned whether the series would work in their language market. The answer today is a global phenomenon. Our reach also expanded beyond books. In 1996 a license agreement with EMI brought Classical Music For Dummies enhanced CDs to market. Critically and commercially successful, the series initiated the For Dummies licensing program of products and services that has included software, consumer electronics, instructional DVDs, DIY home improvement kits, online support services, beginner musical instruments, and more. Today, as books themselves have reached beyond traditional print formats to digital platforms, For Dummies continues to expand, into e-books, enhanced e-books, and mobile applications. And again, this too is happening globally, as Wiley editors in Australia, Canada, Germany, the U.K., and U.S. work together to grow our print and electronic publishing program, which is further enhanced by contributions from licensee publishers in France, the Netherlands, Spain, and elsewhere. It is remarkable to think that one book
”
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John Wiley & Sons (A Little Bit of Everything For Dummies)
“
Hindus and Muslims are unlikely to resolve the issue of whether a temple or a mosque should be built at Ayodhya by building both, or neither, or a syncretic building that is both a mosque and a temple. Nor can what might seem to be a straightforward territorial question between Albanian Muslims and Orthodox Serbs concerning Kosovo or between Jews and Arabs concerning Jerusalem be easily settled, since each place has deep historical, cultural, and emotional meaning to both peoples. Similarly, neither French authorities nor Muslim parents are likely to accept a compromise which would allow schoolgirls to wear Muslim dress every other day during the school year. Cultural questions like these involve a yes or no, zero-sum choice.
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Anonymous
“
Most Albanians who took up arms to challenge Serbian oppression did not object to one ethnic group bullying all the others; they simply wanted their group to be the one on top.
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Iain King (Peace at Any Price: How the World Failed Kosovo (Crises in World Politics))
“
In the eyes of the mouse the cat is a lion.
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Albanian Proverb
“
Then Eric talked for half an hour about the Albanian word for
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Kory Stamper (Word by Word: The Secret Life of Dictionaries)
“
If you are in the house of a friend, bad times are soon forgotten.
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Albanian Proverb
“
Kur në Mesjetën e vonë Europa rizbuloi klasikët e Greqisë dhe të Romës, Shqipëria ishte një vend i pushtuar, ku vihej në rrezik jo vetëm vijimi dhe i kulturës autoktone, por vetë jeta e kombit. Rrezikoheshin vlerat historike të një populli, i cili, deri pak kohë më parë, kishte qenë pjesë organike e qytetërimit europian. Pushtimi turk, jo vetëm që e mbajti këtë popull larg zhvillimit të pjesës tjetër të Europës, por këmbënguli me keqdashje në qëllimin e vet për ta detyruar të humbiste origjinalitet dhe origjinë, mbi të gjitha duke favorizuar kthimin e pjesës më të madhe të popullit në fenë islamike.
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Amik Kasoruho
“
Hasan Pasha also gave the green light for Turks and Greeks to take whatever action they pleased against any Albanians they found: killing them was not a crime. Continuing his march, he executed all the Albanians he encountered, setting fire to a monastery where other were hiding and offering five sequins for every Albanian head brought him.
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Mark Mazower (Salonica, City of Ghosts: Christians, Muslims and Jews, 1430-1950)
“
Now that the campaign is over and the returns are in, analysis of the latest Albanian election begins. The facts are clear: Communist Party chief Enver Hoxha’s slate of candidates for Parliament won by the comfortable margin of 1,627,959 to 1. The message seems to be: Stay the course. The party ran well in all regions and among all classes—worker, peasant and apparatchik. It swept the atheist vote. The much ballyhooed gender gap never developed. On the other hand, it failed to make any inroads on opposition support. (In the last Albanian election there was also one vote against.) Some observers had been predicting that opposition support might double, but that prospect dimmed last December when a potential leader of the movement, Prime Minister Mehmet Shehu, committed suicide.
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Charles Krauthammer (Things That Matter: Three Decades of Passions, Pastimes, and Politics)
“
From the first centuries of Ottoman expansion, Circassians and Albanians were counted among the highest-ranking officials and officers as well as the most insidious bandits and rebels
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Anonymous
“
Latin, the early Indo-European language most learned in modern times, held on to six: nominative, genitive (“of the table”), dative (“to the table”), accusative (table as object), ablative (“by the table”), and vocative (if you were moved to say “Oh, table!!” but more usually, of course, with names), and then some words had a locative (Romae, “in Rome”). The ancestor of today’s Slavic languages, Old Church Slavonic, had seven cases, as Lithuanian still does. Old Irish, an early Celtic language, had five, like Ancient Greek then and Albanian now.
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Anonymous
“
Our reach also expanded beyond the U.S., and even the English-speaking world. Before the decade was over For Dummies books had been published in over 30 languages, from Albanian to Turkish. In the early years, many publishers questioned whether the series would work in their language market. The answer today is a global phenomenon.
”
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John Wiley & Sons (A Little Bit of Everything For Dummies)
“
Whereas in 1800 at least 90 per cent of Egyptians were poor peasants, by 1900 more than 25 per cent of the population of 10 million lived in Cairo, Alexandria and the Delta's main cities, and could be counted as lower middle class or working class.11 The economy was by and large in the hands of the royal family, its Turkish-Albanian-European entourage and the thousands of foreigners who had settled in Egypt from the mid- and late-nineteenth century; yet Egyptians, and especially the increasingly influential landowners, were rapidly climbing the political and socio-economic ladder.
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Tarek Osman (Egypt on the Brink: From the Rise of Nasser to the Fall of Mubarak)
“
If the Albanian Museum of Atheism followed its Soviet prototype, the exhibits would have traced the ascent of Man from amoebae to Enver Hoxha. We
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Anthony Daniels (The Wilder Shores Of Marx: Journeys In A Vanishing World)
“
Eliaza Bazna, the professional Albanian Spy. Bazna was the valet to the British Ambassador in Ankara and was under the impression that he was the highest paid spy in history when he was paid 300,000 pounds for secrets he stole from the Ambassador's safe.
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Ryan Jenkins (World War 2: Secret Weapons, Conspiracies & Experiments Revealed (World War 2, World War II, WW2, Brief History Book 1))
“
Do whatever you want, as long as you say you want to be a part of Europe. And then you’ll get away with anything. Look, the Albanians do God knows what. They sell weapons and women, they take hostages. And the world forgives then, as long as they’re pro-Europe and pro-NATO. They’ll forgive us, too. That’s the trend in today’s world.
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Vladimir Lorchenkov (The Good Life Elsewhere)
“
Tongue is made of meat, but it does break bones
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Albanian Proverb
“
Pun, Pun nat e dite, qe te shofim pak drite" (Migjeni Albanian poet)
"Work, work day and night, so we can see some light" Migjeni
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Zybejta (Beta) Metani' Marashi
“
moving freely among European Union nations, make their way toward them. But Kosovo’s Albanians, most of whom are Muslims, are not being greeted with open arms. In another twist, they are being forced back to their land, deemed
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Anonymous
“
Religion mattered at a deep level, which must help to explain why none of these people went over to Islam; but in most cases it did not direct their lives, nor did it prevent some of them from cultivating their connection with a powerful relative who was a Muslim convert. Whilst the fact that they were Catholics from one of Christendom’s frontier zones may have given them an enhanced sense of their Catholicism, the fact that they were Albanians, connected by language, blood and history to Ottoman subjects and Ottoman territory, gave them an ability to see things also from something more like an Ottoman perspective
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Noel Malcolm (Agents of Empire: Knights, Corsairs, Jesuits and Spies in the Sixteenth-Century Mediterranean World)
“
One day I went to the mall with my older daughter, we went to American Eagle, we picked what we need it and walked toward the register, we were waiting in line, other cashier said "mam, I can take you here" by the time I walked around to other site, two young girls cut in front of us, I did not say anything, I told my daughter in Albanian that was rude of them, like the girls understood what I said and they turned their head around talking to each other saying "She don't even speak English" they turned their heads back and giggled. My daughter who is born here, she witnessed the disrespect and the racism, she got real ma and want to fight the girls, I told her "Don't" she said "why?" I said "Because I feel bad for them" My daughter said "mom," what they did to you was rude, "not just they cut in front of you, but they mocked you for being foreign" I said to her, "honey not all parents teach their children the way I taught you, and that's why you don't fight with those kind of people, they are the one with problems not us." Sure they are not our problem now, but they become our problem in society, because this this young girls, one day they grow up to be a CEO or a manage, they can't make an ethical decisions, when it come to hire or fire people from work. Racism have to stop, unless you're native American,you are no diferent from me. I have the same right as everybody else. Don't forget we all are immigrants, some come to America 100 years ago, some 50 and some 25 years ago. I, Proud to be Albanian / American.
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Zybejta (Beta) Metani' Marashi
“
This is one of the few incidents that happen in my past life.
One day I went to the mall with my older daughter, we went to American Eagle, we picked what we need it and walked toward the register, we were waiting in line, other cashier said "Mam, I can take you here" by the time I walked around to other site, two young girls cut in front of us, I did not say anything, I told my daughter in Albanian that was rude of them, like the girls understood what I said and they turned their head around talking to each other saying "She don't even speak English" they turned their heads back and giggled. My daughter who is born here, she witnessed the disrespect and the racism, she got real ma and want to fight the girls, I told her "Don't" she said "why?" I said "Because I feel bad for them" My daughter said "mom," what they did to you was rude, "not just they cut in front of you, but they mocked you for being foreign" I said to her, "honey not all parents teach their children the way I taught you, and that's why you don't fight with those kind of people, they are the one with problems not us." Sure they are not our problem now, but they become our problem in society, because this this young girls, one day they grow up to be a CEO or a manage, they can't make an ethical decisions, when it come to hire or fire people from work. Racism have to stop, unless you're native American,you are no diferent from me. I have the same right as everybody else. Don't forget we all are immigrants, some come to America 100 years ago, some 50 and some 25 years ago. I'm Proud to be Albanian / American
”
”
Zybejta (Beta) Metani' Marashi
“
This is one of the few incidents that happen to me in my past. One day I went to the mall with my older daughter, we went to American Eagle, we picked what we need it and walked toward the register, we were waiting in line, other cashier said "mam, I can take you here" by the time I walked around to other site, two young girls cut in front of us, I did not say anything, I told my daughter in Albanian that was rude of them, like the girls understood what I said and they turned their head around talking to each other saying "She don't even speak English" they turned their heads back and giggled. My daughter who is born here, she witnessed the disrespect and the racism, she got real ma and want to fight the girls, I told her "Don't" she said "why?" I said "Because I feel bad for them" My daughter said "mom," what they did to you was rude, "not just they cut in front of you, but they mocked you for being foreign" I said to her, "honey not all parents teach their children the way I taught you, and that's why you don't fight with those kind of people, they are the one with problems not us." Sure they are not our problem now, but they become our problem in society, because this this young girls, one day they grow up to be a CEO or a manage, they can't make an ethical decisions, when it come to hire or fire people from work. Racism have to stop, unless you're native American,you are no diferent from me. I have the same right as everybody else. Don't forget we all are immigrants, some come to America 100 years ago, some 50 and some 25 years ago. I'm Proud to be Albanian / American.
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Zybejta (Beta) Metani' Marashi
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Moreover, to many patriotic Albanians it was by no means clear that an Allied victory was in the best interests of their country; they feared—perhaps I should say fore-saw—that it would result not only in the loss of Kossovo but also in their own subjection to Communist rule.
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Peter Kemp (No Colours or Crest)
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Just as her mother had taught her that God did not see ethnic divisions such as Albanian or Serbian, Mother Teresa now taught her audience that God did not see divisions such as rich or poor, Western or Eastern, Catholic or Hindu. All of humanity was God’s people, and thus a commitment to God meant a commitment to help the poorest and most destitute of humanity, whoever and wherever they might
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Wyatt North (Mother Teresa: A Life Inspired)
“
Evidently the Albanian guy thought the same way. His right hand snaked into view and gripped the stair rail. No gun. His left hand followed. No gun. But they were big hands. Smooth and hard, broad and discolored, thick blunt fingers, with what looked like a manicure done by a steak mallet.
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Lee Child (Blue Moon (Jack Reacher, #24))
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There have been three major slave revolts in human history. The first, led by the Thracian gladiator Spartacus against the Romans, occurred in 73 BC. The third was in the 1790s when the great black revolutionary Touissant L'Ouverture and his slave army wrested control of Santo Domingo from the French, only to be defeated by Napoleon in 1802. But the second fell halfway between these two, in the middle of the 9th century AD, and is less documented than either. We do know that the insurgents were black; that the Muslim 'Abbasid caliphs of Iraq had brought them from East Africa to work, in the thousands, in the salt marshes of the delta of the Tigris. These black rebels beat back the Arabs for nearly ten years. Like the escaped maroons in Brazil centuries later, they set up their own strongholds in the marshland. They seemed unconquerable and they were not, in fact, crushed by the Muslims until 883. They were known as the Zanj, and they bequeathed their name to the island of Zanzibar in the East Africa - which, by no coincidence, would become and remain the market center for slaves in the Arab world until the last quarter of the 19th century.
The revolt of the Zanj eleven hundred years ago should remind us of the utter falsity of the now fashionable line of argument which tries to suggest that the enslavement of African blacks was the invention of European whites. It is true that slavery had been written into the basis of the classical world; Periclean Athens was a slave state, and so was Augustan Rome. Most of their slaves were Caucasian whites, and "In antiquity, bondage had nothing to do with physiognomy or skin color". The word "slave" meant a person of Slavic origin. By the 13th century it spread to other Caucasian peoples subjugated by armies from central Asia: Russians, Georgians, Circassians, Albanians, Armenians, all of whom found ready buyers from Venice to Sicily to Barcelona, and throughout the Muslim world.
But the African slave trade as such, the black traffic, was a Muslim invention, developed by Arab traders with the enthusiastic collaboration of black African ones, institutionalized with the most unrelenting brutality centuries before the white man appeared on the African continent, and continuing long after the slave market in North America was finally crushed.
Historically, this traffic between the Mediterranean and sub-Saharan Africa begins with the very civilization that Afrocentrists are so anxious to claim as black - ancient Egypt. African slavery was well in force long before that: but by the first millennium BC Pharaoh Rameses II boasts of providing the temples with more than 100,000 slaves, and indeed it is inconceivable that the monumental culture of Egypt could have been raised outside a slave economy. For the next two thousand years the basic economies of sub-Saharan Africa would be tied into the catching, use and sale of slaves. The sculptures of medieval life show slaves bound and gagged for sacrifice, and the first Portuguese explorers of Africa around 1480 found a large slave trade set up from the Congo to Benin. There were large slave plantations in the Mali empire in the 13th-14th centuries and every abuse and cruelty visited on slaves in the antebellum South, including the practice of breeding children for sale like cattle, was practised by the black rulers of those towns which the Afrocentrists now hold up as sanitized examples of high civilization, such as Timbuktu and Songhay.
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Robert Hughes (Culture of Complaint: The Fraying of America (American Lectures))
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I was born and raised in a communist country where all religion's were forbitten. when I immigrated to the USA I told my husband now,. I want to get married in church because I don't want my children to grow up with out faith like I did! We went to Albanian church and got married but 1st we had to be baptized so on December 8, 1991 I converted to Christianity and got married, that very the same nigh I see God & Jesus on my dream!
I see my self I was dropped on the side of the cross road of my childhood neighborhood ( Rusi Katolik) Shkoder, Albania! I'm standingh up on the and look around me it was raining and poring and the rain splashing down on ground, and catching on fire. I see people runging and hear them skreaming but around me was s sunshine spotlight. I hear a very firm voice come from up saying "My child tell your people in your languages stop screaming, and start praying" I tried to resist His order, and God said "DO AS YOU BEEN TOLD MY CHILD" with an very firm voice, and orderly voice. I can hear my self telling people "Moss bertit por lutu, mos bertit por lutu" (Don't scream, and start praying, don't scream start praying). I can hear people praying. The rain stopped and a bright sun come out. I hear God telling me "Well done my child" as I'm leaving going west Jesus showed up on the sky with his arms wide open. He have an light olive skin, light brawn shine waive hair , coming down to his both side of his chest. he have crystal watery blue eyes color, and pinkish lips, he smile at me and I see his pearly bright teeth. I wake up went to balcony to see if that was real or dream because it felt so real! since then I never felt the same, I felt a big burden was lifted out of my chest!
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Zybejta (Beta) Metani' Marashi (Escaping Communism, It's Like Escaping Hell)
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Without the nonchalance that comes from knowing the difference between our beliefs and sensate reality, we become Shiite Moslems or Baptists or fundamentalists of some kind looking for the chance to kill or die for our beliefs in an attempt to make them real. We become Serbian townspeople who don black masks and force their lifetime-neighbor Albanians out of their homes, stripping them of their legal identities and abandoning them to shelterless, cold, and unsanitary fields, or killing them without remorse.
I
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Brad Blanton (Practicing Radical Honesty: How to Complete the Past, Live in the Present, and Build a Future with a Little Help from Your Friends)
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Albanians will hang a teddy bear or ‘monkey’ outside their houses to protect against the ‘evil eye’ seeing their money
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Alex Stephens (Phenomenal Facts 2: The Weird to the Wonderful (Phenomenal Facts Series))
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Nationalism, of course, is intrinsically absurd. Why should the accident—fortune or misfortune—of birth as an American, Albanian, Scot, or Fiji Islander impose loyalties that dominate an individual life and structure a society so as to place it in formal conflict with others? In the past there were local loyalties to place and clan and tribe, obligations, to lord or landlord, dynastic or territorial wars, but primary loyalties were to religion, God or god-king, possibly to emperor, to a civilization as such. There was no nation. There was attachment to patria, land of one’s fathers, or patriotism, but to speak of nationalism before modern times is anachronistic.”1
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James Dale Davidson (The Sovereign Individual: Mastering the Transition to the Information Age)
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The Albanian spoken in Kosovo was completely different from ours; it sounded childlike and unsure of itself. People here used strange words, they called a plate a tanir instead of a pjatë, and a drinking glass was called bardak instead of gotë.
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Pajtim Statovci (Crossing)
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The Italians, who have been “guest workers” at many times and in many countries, are thrown by the phenomenon happening in their own country. During this second summer at Bramasole, the newspapers are tolerant to indignant about Albanians literally washing up on the shores of southern Italy. Living in San Francisco, a city where immigrants arrive daily, we cannot get excited about their problem. Americans in cities have realized that migrations are on the increase; that the whole demographic tapestry is being rewoven on a vast scale in the late twentieth century. Europe is having a harder time coming to grips with this fact. We have our own poor, they tell us incredulously. Yes, we say, we do, too. Italy is amazingly homogeneous; it is rare to see a black or Asian face in Tuscany. Recently, Eastern Europeans, finding the German work force at last full of people like themselves, began arriving in this prosperous part of northern Italy. Now we understood Alfiero’s estimate for the work. Instead of paying the normal Italian twenty-five thousand to thirty thousand lire per hour, he is able to pay nine thousand. He assures us they are legal workers and are covered by his insurance. The Poles are pleased with the hourly wage; at home, before the factory went kaput, they barely earned that much in a day.
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Frances Mayes (Under the Tuscan Sun)
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Morphemes’ order stipulated by Extended Level Ordering, as we shall also demonstrate in this book, corresponds with the order morphemes and word-formation rules are acquired by English children. Inflection morphemes are acquired first by English children, and even before word-formation morphemes. Root compounds are also the complex words acquired early by preschool ageEnglish children (Anglin, 1993; Berko, 1958). Level 2 affixes (e. g., Neutral suffixes) are also acquired by English children during their preschool age (Tyler & Nagy, 1989); though less than compound words. Morphemes and word-formation rules belonging in Level 4 (e. g., Non-neutral suffixes) are acquired last.
Though, Extended Level Ordering is not applicable in other languages. Root compounds have the strongest boundary separating the morphemes even in other languages, but, what differs is the degree of productivity root compounds own in other languages. Compounding is more productive than derivation in English language. In other languages, like Polish and Albanian, there is derivation which is more productive than compounding. Such difference in the productivity transforms the order in which Polish and Albanian children acquire word-formation paterns (i. e., compounding or derivation) of their L1.
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Endri Shqerra (Acquisition of Word Formation Devices in First & Second Languages: Morphological Cross-linguistic Influence)
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Knowledge of Lexical Semantic Relationship: represents children’s ability in recognizing that two words share a common word base.In other words, it symbolizes children’s ability in recognizing the semantic relationship that words belonging to a word family share (e. g. argue, argument).
The result of our tests seem to argue that there is no difference in the Knowledge of Lexical Semantic Relationship both English and Albanian pupils possess
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Endri Shqerra (Acquisition of Word Formation Devices in First & Second Languages: Morphological Cross-linguistic Influence)
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It was an oblong, two-storey building with crumbling, dirty-red roof tiles and mauve plasterwork on the outside walls that had fallen off in chunks. Across it the faded slogan ‘Long Live the Albanian Communist Party’ was flaking off. It now had a wooden plaque on the door reading ‘Shënomadh Church’: an epitaph for the ideology that had claimed Albania as ‘the world’s first atheist state’, thought Jude.
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Paul Alkazraji (The Silencer)
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We Albanians are washed across the world like a handful of sand scattered into the sea, we have disappeared into the landscape like a wooden altar screen against a wooden altar. Our country is forever tainted, it has been violated with malicious words, demarcated in the maps of the world with a dashed black line.
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Pajtim Statovci (Bolla)
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In another such instance I witnessed a classmate ruthlessly declare to my entire class, “All Bosnians should have been killed in the war”. He was an Albanian Catholic who openly supported Serbs, hatred of Muslims, and genocide. He also enjoyed pointing out that my father was a “weakling” next to his father because my father worked as a security guard (despite having a college degree) while his father worked for a reputable company and made more money despite not having any education. He wanted to emphasize how much more powerful he and his family were than me and my family.
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Aida Mandic (Justice For Bosnia and Herzegovina)
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These summer storms would be hatched in a nest of cumulus clouds in the Albanian mountains and ferried rapidly across to Corfu by a warm, scouring wind
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Gerald Durrell (The Corfu Trilogy (The Corfu Trilogy #1-3))
“
Apostolic and his ch eta held the second of the two posts taken from the Turkish troops. He it was who had defended them against the attempted recapture. He came to invite Lula, Te odor and me to visit and dine with him. We went in two boats, winding down through the cane brake, emerging suddenly into a lake larger than ours. Apostle's post more resembled a farm; in the lake were tame ducks and geese while about his three huts wandered chickens, turkeys, guinea fowl, sheep and goats. There was a tame ram, the ch eta's mascot, an obnoxious beast that walked in and out of the huts at its pleasure, trampling and waking sleeping men, butting them when they resented his intrusion. Occasionally he was forcibly ejected, but I never observed any permanent results. They told me that he was a most excellent companion on the night marches. He walked at the head of the file, behind the Suddenly he would stop, give a wicked little snort and stamp a forefoot. This warning never failed; somebody would be ahead on the trail, friend or foe. In this way the ram had saved the ch eta several nasty surprises. It struck me at once that Apostle's men averaged below Lula's in intelligence. Most of them were simple, illiterate peasant boys. Since the swamp had been taken it had become the haven for refugees from Turkish justice. There was one boy of fourteen who had stolen an old carbine from a Turkish field watcher whom he found asleep, and then fled —to the swamp. Another, an anaemic lad of seventeen, a tailor's apprentice, had stabbed a drunken soldier who was beating him. Off he ran—to the swamp. An old man had hailed the post one night, and was brought into camp. He had killed an Albanian land steward. A week later, his son, a mere child, badly wounded a gendarme with a stone. Then—off to the swamp. In this way Apostolic had acquired a large camp following of non-combatants Apostle's orphan asylum," as Lula called it. About twice a year there was a general clearing up; then a score or two were sent marching to Bulgaria. There the Central Committee housed them until they found work. Apostolic complained that he could never keep a secretary long. Lula caught my eye and smiled. Apostolic was not the kind of commanding officer a student would choose.
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Albert Sonnichsen (Confessions of a Macedonian Bandit)
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In the territories of Croatia, Slavonia, Istra and Slovenia, especially on the coast, people called them Kresnici or Krsnici. People believe that they got their capabilities at birth (chosen by higher powers) and that they have ability to go into a trance, while asleep or awake. In these moments, their spirit goes out through the mouth in the shape of black fly or something similar. Their main enemies were probably werewolves, who fought in the air or at cross-roads. People also believed that they flew over the sea and participated in the struggle in Venice over Saint Mark Square. During these struggles, they could change their appearance and take the shape of one of the animals. Of the highest importance were bulls, male goats, and horses. In the struggles, they mostly used their wooden rods, but animal horns and other items were also used. The same was also believed to be true for Albanian Stuves, Italian Benadante and Malandante, the evil versions of Benadant.
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Radomir Ristic (Balkan Traditional Witchcraft)
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The Muslim fundamentalists in there seemed to accept he was a person of the book, even if, in their eyes, he was following an erroneous interpretation of Jesus as the Christ. Instead, they reserved their elitist disdain for the Godless majority – those people beyond rehabilitation and destined for Hell.
Nevertheless, the Muslims organised themselves into thuggish gangs and made it clear their own brethren were off limits. Nobody bothered with them, whether through mutual resentment or out of respect for the unwritten code of maintaining gang autonomy – perhaps a bit of both. And maybe the ‘Mullah Boys’ saw no need to exact revenge on him because Miranda Yilmaz was a white convert and not one of their own. Most of these bearded zealots were Pakistani or Afro-Caribbean. One or two Albanians also identified with the faith, although they resented the Asians and didn’t strike Ed as particularly religious.
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Kirk Houghton (The Dividing Lines)
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The Albanian Art of Subtle Seduction [10w]
"You have an amazing mind now show me your tits.
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Beryl Dov
“
As we sat down, Barney late as usual, it came home to me how there were some things I didn’t miss about drinking, like choosing the wine. This now seemed like a right load of old bollocks. Hey, believe me, in the past I was just as guilty as everybody else. ‘Is it from the south side of the vineyard? Has it been trod by an Albanian virgin?’ All that crap! Basically just showing off, because believe you me, and you know I would not lie to you, a couple of glasses in, and I’m sure no one, not even Barney, could have told the difference between the finest Chablis and donkey piss.
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Peter Hook (Substance: Inside New Order)
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poster of the Yalta Conference—Yalta!—in his bedroom, the words “NEVER FORGET” emblazoned beneath Churchill, Roosevelt, and Stalin in Polish, Latvian, Czech, Albanian, and all those other ex-commie tongues.
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Rob Reid (After On: A Novel of Silicon Valley)
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In a Global Research article,179 Chossudovsky recalls past CIA covert operations such as those in Central America, Haiti, and Afghanistan. Illicit dope funded the so-called “Freedom Fighters” Langley sponsored in those areas. As an example, Chossudovsky noted that Iran-Contra rebels and the Afghan “muj” got their funds through “dirty money” being transformed into “covert money” by way of shell companies and the lending structure. Weapons and drugs and money flowed across the borders of Albania with Kosovo and Macedonia. For hefty commissions, “respectable” European banks, far removed from the fighting, dry-cleaned the dirty dollars. The drugs went one way, and the greenbacks another, helping pay the fighters and their trainers. Writing in Global Research,180 Prof. Chossudovsky added to our knowledge of the sources of support for the Bosnian Muslim Army and the KLA—opium-based drug money direct from the Golden Crescent (Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Iran). Mercenaries financed by Saudi Arabia and Kuwait had been fighting in Bosnia.181 And the Bosnian pattern was replicated in Kosovo: Mujahadeen [sic] mercenaries from various Islamic countries are reported to be fighting alongside the KLA [Kosovo Liberation Army] in Kosovo. German, Turkish and Afghan instructors were reported to be training the KLA in guerilla and diversion tactics.182 Worse, The trade in narcotics and weapons was allowed to prosper despite the presence since 1993 of a large contingent of American troops at the Albanian-Macedonian border with a mandate to enforce the embargo. The West had turned a blind eye. The revenues from oil and narcotics were used to finance the purchase of arms (often in terms of direct barter): “Deliveries of oil to Macedonia (skirting the Greek embargo [in 1993–94] can be used to cover heroin, as do deliveries of kalachnikov [sic] rifles to Albanian ‘brothers’ in Kosovo.
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J. Springmann (Visas for Al Qaeda: CIA Handouts That Rocked the World: An Insider's View)
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Casolaro about the conspiratorial entity Casolaro was by now calling “the Octopus,” a cabal which Casolaro believed had been started by CIA superspook James Jesus Angleton. Casolaro believed that the motive for creating the Octopus had been revenge for the notorious Albanian operation which had been compromised by Soviet mole Kim Philby.
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Kenn Thomas (The Octopus: Secret Government and the Death of Danny Casolaro)
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We are all equal at nature, but we are distinguished by education.
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Sami Frashëri (Shqipëria ç'ka qenë, ç'është e ç'do të bëhetë?)
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Shumë thonë se vetë jeta është luftë. Hëh, jo, ore jo; luftë e njëmend është ajo e panjohur që gjendet brenda njeriut (...)
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Nebil Duraku (Egjra)
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In addition, things that I had lived with unthinkingly because they were widespread took on a new strangeness, and terms that made up part of the basic trappings of conversation started to chafe. I began to feel as never before how limiting catch-all labels for different groups in society are... Words such as 'black' or 'white' felt cramped and inadequate as a means of talking about ethnicity, suggesting, as they did , that I must have more in common with an Albanian donkey farmer than with the Zimbabwean-British family living down the hallway from me...
The same things held true for some of the terms I had been used to framing the world with. Words like 'developed' and 'developing' ... suddenly revealed themselves as Trojan horses packed with assumptions.
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Ann Morgan
“
It is much easier to develop a man's qualities than to eliminate their flaws.
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Albanian Proverb
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When we speak the name of Jesus, we speak the name of God’s salvation. When we believe in the name of Jesus, we believe in the salvation of God. When we call upon the name of Jesus, we call upon the salvation of God. So whether we speak it as Jesus in English or Y’shua in Hebrew or Iesous in Greek or Jezui in Albanian or Iisus in Russian or Gesa in Italian or Yesu in Korean, in this holy name we name our salvation.
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Brian Zahnd (The Anticipated Christ: A Journey Through Advent and Christmas)
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Nope. I have her photo in my folder on Manny from last year. I didn’t recognize her right away. Her hair is shorter now, and the photo was old, but it’s her.” A stream of curses comes from the other end of the line. “What the fuck was she doing hidden in the Italians’ shipment? Did she know the truck was going to be delivered to the Albanians?” “No clue.” I shrug, take the platter with the soup and the juice, and head toward the stairs. “Let her stay there for now, and don’t let her out of your sight until we find out what’s going on. I need to focus on the Italians now. Mikhail should be here any moment. We’ll handle the cartel princess issue after the situation with Bruno Scardoni blows over.” “Okay.” I head upstairs. “But you should know one thing. I’m keeping her, Roman.” “What? You are not keeping her. She’s not a fucking stray you can just claim as yours.” “Of course I can.
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Neva Altaj (Hidden Truths (Perfectly Imperfect, #3))
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We (Albania) had become the high priests of calamity and the shame of the universe.
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Ismail Kadare (Agamemnon's Daughter: A Novella and Stories)
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the Muslim farmers in the coastal plain, and carried on an interminable sort of predatory warfare with their immediate neighbours, this being the principal justification for existence of all Epirots and Albanians, whether Christian or Muslim.
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Eric Newby (On the Shores of the Mediterranean: A Classic Non-Fiction Travel Adventure Through Italy and Turkey)
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Hoxha's contempt of capitalist society was summed up in a speech which also hinted at the pride he felt in Albanian national culture 'Why should we turn our country into an inn with doors flung open to pigs and sows, to people with pants on or no pants at all, to the hirsute, longhaired hippies to supplant their wild orgies, the graceful dances of our people.
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Miranda Vickers (The Albanians: A Modern History)
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Stalin asked Kardelj questions about the origins of the Albanians, commenting, 'They seem to be a rather backward and primitive people', to which the Yugoslav ambassador replied, 'But they are very brave and faithful' — a statement that somewhat reinforced Stalin's opinion of the Albanians, as he continued, 'Yes, they can be as faithful as a dog, that is one of the traits of the primitive.
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Miranda Vickers (The Albanians: A Modern History)
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You didn’t see him lose it and threaten to rape the Albanian with all objects available, so shut it,” Maksim says. “He…what?
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Rina Kent (Lies of My Monster (Monster Trilogy, #2))
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The Italians, the Greeks, hell, even the Albanians had a hand in making this what it is. Blood, sweat, and tears went into every skyscraper—literally.
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Shandi Boyes (Dimitri (The Italian Cartel #1))
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So I patched things back up with Juan’s cartel and got us a better deal. On the bright side, some organizations asked to be allies after they witnessed how I annihilated the Albanians.
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Rina Kent (Heart of My Monster (Monster Trilogy, #3))
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The Albanians said they colluded with a man to take you out.
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Rina Kent (Heart of My Monster (Monster Trilogy, #3))
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This time, we expanded our options to Boston because the leader of the Albanians here, Roel, is the cousin of the motherfucker we killed a few months ago in New York.
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Rina Kent (Heart of My Monster (Monster Trilogy, #3))
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...the problem of Kosovo has simmered until Slobodan Milošević, Serbia's nationalistic prime minister, brought it back to the boil by his efforts to incorporate Kosovo into his fiefdom by depriving the great bulk of the population, the Albanians of Kosovo, of their political, civil and, in some instances, human rights. Serbia's communist party is the only one in Eastern Europe to have retained popular support; a trick pulled off by Milošević by his astute identification of the party with the most aggressive elements of Serbian chauvenism, encouraging the Serbs in Croatia to agitate for incorporation into a greater Serbia. Milošević seems to be reckoning that by pushing Serbian claims, even to the extent of breaking up Yugoslavia, he will be able to dominate a larger and more coherent Serbia, which can in turn pick off its less populous neighbours. However, since Croatia and Slovenia will not submit to Serbian hegenomy, and since Albanians hugely outnumber Serbs in Kosovo, he is setting the stage not just for the fragmentation of Yugoslavia, but for a civil war of potentially crippling savagery.
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Walter Perrie (Roads That Move: A Journey through Eastern Europe)
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It’s been one day since we located the most probable suspects—the Albanians.
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Rina Kent (Heart of My Monster (Monster Trilogy, #3))
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It makes sense from what the Albanian guy said about meeting secretly and how his ally wanted to hurt me as much as possible.
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Rina Kent (Heart of My Monster (Monster Trilogy, #3))
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I only took care of some unfinished business.” “What unfinished business?” “Whatever remained of the Albanians’ nests. What are you doing up? I specifically told you to rest.
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Rina Kent (Lies of My Monster (Monster Trilogy, #2))
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We’ll only be done after we burn down all the Albanians’ nests.
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Rina Kent (Lies of My Monster (Monster Trilogy, #2))
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The three of us and Maksim rush to the front line, facing soldiers who look like an army of ants. From their words and the orders shouted, they’re Albanians. They’re the last thing we need at the moment. Yes, we have disagreements with them, but I didn’t think they’d go as far as ambushing us in the middle of the road.
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Rina Kent (Lies of My Monster (Monster Trilogy, #2))
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Ever since the kidnapping episode by the Albanians two months ago, things have evolved between us.
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Rina Kent (Lies of My Monster (Monster Trilogy, #2))
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I had hoped for a rich crop of eccentrics among them, such as I had encountered at the annual general meeting of the Anglo-Albanian Society in London a month previously. The secretary of the society was a retired optician from Ilford who had discovered the Balkan paradise late in life and learnt its language; the rank and file of the society seemed either elderly revolutionaries of the upper classes, who knew the key to world history yet somehow had never learnt how to do up their shirt buttons properly, or lonely, embittered proletarian autodidacts, who dreamed of vengeance upon the world and called it love of humanity.
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Theodore Dalrymple (The Wilder Shores Of Marx: Journeys In A Vanishing World)